MP minister reach Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve with senior forest officers to probe elephants death

Umaria (Madhya Pradesh) [India], November 2 (ANI): Following the instruction of Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, Minister of State for Forest and Environment Department, Dileep Ahirwar and two senior forest officers reached Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve (BTR) on Saturday to probe the death of ten elephants.
Minister Ahirwar, Additional Chief Secretary (ACS, forest) Ashok Barnwal and the state's head of forest force (HOFF) Aseem Shrivastava collected the information from the spot and will submit its report to the CM Yadav.
Ahirwar said, "We received the information about the death of elephants on October 29 and later within three days 10 elephants died till October 31. Teams have been constituted and a probe is underway. I have visited the spot where the last rites of the elephants were performed."
"On the instructions of the Chief Minister, I along with ACS and HOFF came here to collect the information about the incident. After that, we will submit the probe report before the Chief Minister," he added.
Earlier on Friday night, CM Mohan Yadav held an emergency meeting with top officers regarding the death of elephants at CM house and instructed a high level team to collect detailed information about the incident.
He also directed to take a strict action against whoever was found guilty.
Notably, On Tuesday (October 29) four elephants, from a herd of 13 elephants, were found dead in the BTR while four others were found ill during the normal patrolling, according to deputy director of BTR, P K Verma.
On receiving the information, the forest official reached the spot and identified that it was a herd of 13 elephants. Initially, among them two were normal and healthy while the treatment of remaining ill elephants were initiated. During the treatment more elephants died, taking the toll to ten elephants, deputy director Verma said, adding that the remaining three elephants from that herd are completely healthy. (ANI)