Saki's death haunts officials

HYDERABAD: A full three years after it was killed in the Nehru Zoological Park (NZP) by unidentified culprits, Saki, the one year old tigress, continues to haunt officials of the forest department.
Such is the fear of a repeat of such an incident that security at tiger enclosures in the NZP, the Sri Venkateswara Zoological Gardens on the Tirumala hills and the Indira Gandhi Zoological Park in Visakhapatnam was tightened this year in the run up to Dasara.
With popular belief being that Saki was killed for its blood for performing tantric rites for the success and longevity of a politician, the officials chose not to take any chances with the security of the zoo tigers in the state ever since.
The increased vigil will be continued for some more time, an official said.
And since Saki was killed in the run up to Dasara,which is believed to be the right time to propitiate Goddess Kali by those performing tantric rites and with no investigations worth their name into the killing of Saki in the last three years, some of the staff in the forest department feel that they have no option but to fall back on the popular belief about Saki''s killing.
It may be recalled that Saki was killed and skinned and drained of its blood in the Nehru Zoological Park and its carcass was discovered on October 4.
However, this was kept a top secret by the then top zoo and forest department officials and announced to the public only on October 5 and made it to the headlines the next day.
Though Union environment and forests minister T R Baalu had written twice in the past few months to the state government saying it either shuts the Saki probe, or shows some progress or hand it over to the CBI, the government here is yet to take a decision on this, it was learnt.
With the chief minister recuperating from the attempt on his life, a decision on Saki case probe — whether to hand it over to the CBI or not — is expected to take some more time.
As far as police investigations are concerned, they have made no progress so far.
Though the then zoo curator B Trinadha Rao was questioned about the delay in informing the police and washing the scene of crime with disinfectants — ostensibly to prevent any infections from the remains or splatters of blood of Saki, nothing came of it.