Guwahati, September 8: Assam Police officials from three districts of Barak Valley and Assam Forest Department participated in a workshop on ‘Wildlife Crimes Scenario and its Various Dimension” organised at Hailakandi by the Assam Police, Southern Range, in association with Aaranyak and District Legal Services Authority, Hailakandi on Sunday.
Welcoming the participants and resource persons, the DIG (Southern Range) of Assam Police, Kangkan Jyoti Saikia reminded the participants about Assam’s rich wildlife heritage and underlined the need for organising such workshops especially in Barak Valley for its strategic location and in view of the changing wildlife crime scenario in the region.
The Member Secretary of District Legal Services Authority, Hailakandi, Pranab Sharma, was also present in the workshop.
Delivering the keynote address on the theme of the workshop, reputed wildlife conservation scientist and the Executive Director of country’s one of the premier biodiversity conservation organisations, Dr Bibhab Kumar Talukdar highlighted how the illegal wildlife trade has emerged as the fourth largest after illegal trades in narcotics, arms smuggling and human trafficking across the globe.
He also talked about the rhino poaching situation in Assam context as well as in South Africa or other African countries. Highlighting the steps taken by the Assam government to protect wildlife and prevent wildlife crimes, Dr Talukdar commented that because of the proactive actions by the Assam government rhino poaching has come down from 41 incidents in 2013 to only two in past few years while it was zero poaching during the year 2022. Dr. Talukdar also highlighted how illegal wildlife trade also brings illegal arms into India from neighbouring countries posing threat to national security. He thanks Assam Police Southern Range for organising this workshop in Hailakandi.
Dr Talukdar also sensitised the participants on various sections of Wildlife Protection Act that can be used by police and forest officials alike. He underscored that the Wildlife Protection Act is a special Act and hence it sometimes supersedes other Acts.
“Like the forest officers, the police officers, especially the sub-inspectors and above, have the power as per the provisions of Wildlife Protection Act to file a complaint case. Any wildlife offence case is generally registered based on a complaint to the CJM court,” Dr Talukdar said.
Participating in the discussion, legal experts, especially the advocates, highlighted various provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act as well as its limitations. The Hailakandi Police also shared their experience in seizure of some exotic animals Red and Blue Iory bird.
About 30 police officials from three Barak Valley districts – Cachar, Hailakandi and Sribhumi — participated in the workshop along with forest officers of various forest divisions from Barak Valley including the Divisional Forest Officer of Hailakandi, Akhil Dutta who opined that such workshops would be of immense benefit for forest and police officials.Participating in the discussion SSP Hailakandi Amitabh Sinha poke about provisions of Prevention of Cruelty to Animal Act 1962 specially in the context of Hailakandi.
It was acknowledged by all that such a workshop was very much needed in Barak Valley. Although the wildlife cases are few in the region, forest and police officials deployed in Barak Valley have to remain alert to detect wildlife crimes because of the rising trend of wildlife trafficking through the international border in the neighbouring state of Mizoram.