Kaziranga forest officials to be trained in forensics

A senior CBI officer, who solved the infamous Gir lion poaching case using modern forensic techniques, will train forest department officials of Kaziranga which is facing rampant poaching.
Joint Director Keshav Kumar, a 1986-batch IPS officer of Gujarat cadre, will be giving a lectures to the forest officials of Kaziranaga on "Forensic interface in Rhino and Tiger poaching" and train them on the use of modern crime solving techniques in cracking wildlife crime cases.
The area had reported as many as 17 poaching cases this year. It had forced the state government to handover some of these cases to CBI which has registered three cases in this regard.

Wildlife experts also feel that such trainings will help in increasing conviction of poachers who get away from law because of poor expertise of forest department officials in collecting forensic evidence.
"Whenever a carcass is found, three veterinarians conducts postmortem and burn it. There are several indicators which can be taken from the scene of crime, carcass and accused like fingerprints, footprints, DNA samples, forensic examination which can form a chain of evidence in courts and help in conviction," former Deputy Director at Wildlife Crime Control Bureau told PTI.
He said forest officials are not trained in this medical jurisprudence and such training will help them in identifying criminals and ensuring their conviction through strong forensic evidence.

"Certainly such training sessions will help in increasing conviction of poachers," NBK Ashraf, Chief Veterinarian at Wildlife Trust of India said.
Kumar who was posted as Inspector General of Police in Guajrat before joining the agency had used modern DNA fingerprint techniques to solve poaching case where 10 lions were killed in Gir National Park protected area.