A dead elephant, a cover up, and a probe that exposed Forest dept officials at Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve

Nearly two years after the elephant was found dead in 2022, Range Officer Shil Sindhu Shrivastava, and Forest Guards Kamla Prasad Kol and Pushpendranath Mishra were suspended on July 12 this year. The case against them will now be heard at a local court in Satna.

Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve Deputy Director Prakash Verma told The Indian Express, “We have suspended one Range Officer, and two Forest Guards… There were two other accused who were labourers and their contract has been terminated.”

For decades, there were no elephant herds in Bandhavgarh, which is known for its tigers. Over the last few years, elephants started moving into the reserve from Chhattisgarh. Wildlife officials have since been hard at work trying to manage the safety of the elephants, and have even set up the Hatthi Mitra Dal, to manage the more than 50 elephants that now inhabit the reserve.

According to an investigation report filed by former state Tiger Strike Force chief Dheeraj Singh Chauhan in May 2023, a local resident was the first to find the elephant carcass on November 24, 2022. It was found at the Panpatha Range and was already in a decomposed state, the report said.

The first Forest official to get the information was Forest Guard Kamla Prasad Kol, who was the Range Assistant in charge. According to the report, Kol phoned Panpatha Buffer Range Officer Shil Sindhu Shrivastava and informed him about the finding, after which Shrivastava told Kol to “leave the elephant carcass as it was”. Shrivastava did not inform any other senior officers about this, the report said.

A month later, Kol told Shrivastava that the “elephant carcass had mostly decomposed, leaving only the skin and bones”.

According to the report, the Range Officer “instructed that the remaining parts be burned at the same location”, and subsequently, Kol and some workers “collected wood from the forest and burned the skin and bones of the dead elephant”.

Even after burning, the bones were not completely destroyed. “The following day, the in-charge Range Assistant Kamla Prasad Kol, Forest Guard Pushpendranath Mishra, and three workers broke the bones into small pieces and buried the ashes and bone fragments…,” the report read.

However, during the process of burning the elephant’s remains, one of the workers involved, Dinesh Kol, had taken a photo on his mobile phone, the report said.

This photo later went viral, and was used by wildlife activist Ajay Dubey as the basis to file a complaint about the incident. Dubey had alleged that because of “criminal negligence, there was a lack of patrolling due to which elephants were hunted and evidence was burnt”.

After an initial investigation was conducted into this, the Chief Forest Conservator and Area Director of Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve said in a report on February 17, 2023, that a bone fragment was found with the help of a dog squad, but that “no evidence of an elephant’s death or its burning has been found”.

“It is unknown to which species or part of the body the seized bone belongs. The identification of the bone fragment is necessary for further investigation,” the initial report had said. The officer also said that the photo referred to by the complainant, Dubey, misrepresented the situation.

The investigation was later taken over by Sub-Divisional Officer of Panpatha (Buffer), Fateh Singh Ninama. Further probe was conducted by the state Tiger Strike Force (STF) and the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, Central Zone, Jabalpur.

A joint team of the STF from Bhopal and Jabalpur reached Ghorighat village in the Panpatha Range and questioned Forest Guard Kol, and a security worker, Belani Kol. “In the inquiry, these individuals admitted that they, with the help of others, had burned the dead elephant without following any legal procedures and later buried the ashes and bones in various locations within the forest area,” the May 2023 report said.

The investigators were then taken to three locations where “ashes and charred bones” were found.

On February 6, 2024, Chief Conservator of Forests and Field Director, Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve issued a suspension order, saying: “Shil Sindhu Shrivastava, Forester, found a wild elephant dead within his jurisdiction in November 2022. He failed to inform the senior officers and, without following the government’s rules and instructions, destroyed the elephant’s body and concealed the entire incident from the senior office. False information was continuously provided to the senior office regarding this matter.”

The order said Shrivastava “demonstrated negligence in the discharge of his duties entrusted by the government”.

He was, however, reinstated and, according to tiger reserve Deputy Director Verma, deputed to other departments where he “could not influence the investigation”.

However, after a chargesheet was filed into the matter, Shrivastava and the two Forest Guards were suspended again on July 12.

Activist Dubey told The Indian Express that the “slow investigation” had meant there was a “lack of clarity on how this elephant died”, and raised doubts about whether it was poached.

Wildlife officials said the suspended officers were not involved in poaching. “To the best if my knowledge, the elephant was already dead by the time the officers spotted the carcass,” Verma said.