Forest officers, police review security at Gir

7-5-08

Forest officers, police review security at Gir

Indian Express By Sibte Hussain Bukhari

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Forest-officers-police-review-security-at-Gir/306497/

Junagadh, May 06 A high-level meeting was convened on Tuesday — reportedly prompted by a poaching incident, that of a leopard in the revenue area outside the Gir forest. The meeting decided to review the security arrangements and the precautionary measures to be taken to prevent the recurrence of such incidents.

Inspector General of Police (Junagadh Range) Mohan Jha chaired the meeting, which was attended by forest conservators, deputy forest conservators and police officers.

“Various issues were discussed, including the fresh reports of threat to wildlife particularly from the Madhya Pradesh-based Baheliya tribal members. Officials have been asked to be on the alert and keep extra vigil in and around the Gir forest,” Jha said.

He said the state government has made it compulsory to convene review meetings at a regular interval. Officials have been asked to keep a tab on the movement of inter-state labourers and to check hotels, dhabas, railway and bus stations without any lapse, he added.

Conservator of forest (wild life) Bharat Pathak, said, “It was a periodical inter-department co-ordination meeting, in which the concerned officers were asked to remain alert."

Meanwhile, no breakthrough has been made in the last Saturday’s poaching incident wherein a leopard was killed on the outskirt of Simar village under the Jashadhar forest range.

The hunt is still on to nab the two persons suspected to be involved in the crime, said an official, even as unconfirmed reports said that the two were held on Tuesday.