Cop among 6 poachers arrested for hunting in PTR

Pilibhit: The police arrested six poachers, a head constable posted at reserve police lines, from the Mala forest range in the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve (PTR), where they had allegedly hunted wildlife just two days earlier early on Monday. The poachers, armed with four guns, a licensed revolver, knives, and over a dozen bullets, had also stolen a double-barrel gun from a forest guard. The arrest led to the dismantling of a poaching network operating across different forest regions, including those in Uttarakhand. The mastermind, Mohammad Jishan, a resident of the Bhure Khan locality in Pilibhit, was found to have connections in Uttarakhand and supplied firearms to his gang. The police said Jishan "confessed to his repeated poaching activities in Mahof and other forest range areas in PTR and East Terai forest division of Uttarakhand in the past and had a network of customers to buy the wildlife body parts, including the hides, trophies of deer species, and antelopes."Pilibhit ASP Vikram Dahiya presented the arrested poachers and the recovered weapons during a press conference at the district police headquarters. He identified the head constable as Mansoor Khan from Saharanpur district, who had "snatched the forest department's double-barrel gun".The other arrested poachers were identified as Sapan Sarkar, Viplab Bala, and Gurvinder Singh, all from villages near Neuria police station in Pilibhit district, and Abdul Haqim from Udham Singh Nagar district in Uttarakhand.The police had deployed five teams to capture the poachers, including the special operations group, the surveillance cell, and three police stations. Dahiya said, "The wildlife crime in PTR had been committed by eight poachers of whom two are absconding. We are striving to arrest the other members of the gang and to bust the network of their clients."