India to involve Interpol to fight illegal wildlife trade

Indian law-enforcement officials attended a training programme organized by Interpol in Kathmandu last month to step up efforts to deal with "organised transnational criminal activity and illegal wildlife trade," sources said.

TRAFFIC, a global wildlife monitoring network, said 28 law enforcement officers from 11 Asian countries had gathered in Kathmandu to attend the Information and Intelligence Management Course on Environmental Enforcement initiated by Interpol.

The meeting took place from December 17 to 21 and brought together senior investigators and intelligence analysts from various law enforcement agencies from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, TRAFFIC said in its notes.

Indian officials said the country has taken several anti-poaching initiatives including preparation of tiger reserve specific security plan, deployment of local people as tiger protection force and use of sniffer dogs at sensitive places and electronic surveillance.

Government has also taken steps like payment of compensation for killed cattle, involvement of Special Tiger Protection force in sensitive reserves, creation of tiger photo data base and use of DNA analysis to identify the source of tiger body parts to tackle poaching and smuggling of endangered big cats, they said.