Our Correspondent
MANGALDAI: Premier biodiversity conservation and research organization, Aaranyak on Sunday organized a workshop for police personnel in Darrang district on wildlife crime scenario and efficacy of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 in Mangaldai in Assam.
“The workshop was organized in collaboration with Darrang District Police in pursuit of Aaranyak’s efforts to add teeth to the tirade against wildlife crimes, including poaching and illegal trade in wildlife parts,” said the CEO and secretary general of Aaranyak, Dr Bibhab Talukdar. It was part of a series of similar workshops that have been organized by Aaranyak for different district police of the State of late.
Sunday’s workshop, organized by the Legal and Advocacy Division of Aaranyak, was attended by over 30 field-level police officers of the district in the rank of Inspector and Sub-Inspectors, besides the Superintendent of Police Amrit Bhuyan, Deputy Superintendent of Police (HQ) Mamani Hazarika and Deputy Superintendent of Police (Border) Anita Hazarika.
At the outset of the day’s proceedings, the Superintendent of Police, Amrit Bhuyan said that such a workshop was the need of the hour given the rising wildlife crime graph. The Divisional Forest Officer (Wildlife) Mangaldai Division, Ramesh Gogoi highlighted the importance of such sensitizing sessions for honing skills of enforcement personnel in preventing and scientifically investigating wildlife crimes in the State where precious faunal resources are under threat of different dimensions and types.
One of the key resource persons from Aaranyak, Dr Talukdar gave a presentation highlighting the alarming wildlife crime scenario and the important role that the police were expected to play for improving the situation.
Noted conservation expert and Honorary Wildlife Warden Kaushik Barua, while addressing the workshop, flagged the growing importance of K9 sniffer dog squad of Aaranyak in preventing and investigating wildlife crimes in the state. He mentioned that five units of K9 squads had been provided by Aaranyak for use by the wildlife protection staff in three protected areas of the State -Kaziranga National Park (3 units), Orang National Park (one unit) and Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary (one unit). Associate lawyer of Aaranyak, Ajoy Kumar Das explained in details about the efficacy of various provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.