File picture of forest guards patrolling Kaziranga National Park

Jorhat, Sept. 16: Kaziranga National Park officials yesterday arrested two persons on charges of poisoning and killing a Royal Bengal tiger a fortnight ago.

The decomposed carcass of the tiger was found buried in the Koltapu area in Sonitpur district today. The hide was intact.

After receiving information that a tiger had been killed in the sixth added area of the park, forest guards picked up Nadim Ahmed and Bahajul Haque from the fringe area, sources said.

The area falls under Jinjia police station in Sonitpur district.

Cattle farmers, who have a large number of khotis (small dairy farms) on the saporis (sandbars) of the Brahmaputra, inhabit the area.

According to sources, the duo said a tiger had recently been straying out of the park and preying on the cattle. To protect the cattle, the duo, along with three others, poisoned the carcass of a cow that had died naturally over two weeks ago, expecting the tiger to feed on it.

After consuming the carcass, the big cat died and the five persons took away the bones of the animal and buried the skin and flesh in the Koltapu area, sources said. The bones must have been sold to some traders involved in smuggling of body parts of wild animals, they added.

“We took the duo to the spot and began digging in the presence of the magistrate and police. We recovered the remains of the tiger carcass in a decomposed state,” the park’s divisional forest officer, S.K. Seal Sarmah, told this correspondent.

Sarmah said samples taken from the carcass would be sent to the forensic laboratory for tests.

The DFO said the police have arrested the two persons and efforts were on to catch the three others allegedly involved in the crime.

There are over 100 Royal Bengal tigers in the park according to the last census report released in 2012. The report, Tigers of the Kaziranga National Park, Assam, India, 2009-2011, said 118 tigers were recorded in the park over the three year-period. The figure included six tigers that died during the monitoring period.

The study was a joint initiative of the Assam forest department and bio-diversity conservation group Aaranyak. In 2011, it was carried out in collaboration with the Wildlife Institute of India and WWF India.