Women and Child Development (WCD) Minister Maneka Gandhi is up in arms against her own party’s government in Maharashtra over the killing of tigress Avni on Saturday and dared to take up the case legally, criminally and politically.
Maneka, a well-known animal rights activist, described the Avni’s killing in the BJP-led Maharashtra as a “brutal murder” and a “test case of crimes against animals”. She slammed BJP’s Sudhir Mungantiwar, Minister of Forests, Maharashtra, for allegedly “ordering the killing” of the tigress and threatened to take up the matter with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
“I am deeply saddened by the way tigress Avni has been brutally murdered in Yavatmal. It is nothing, but a straight case of crime. Despite several requests from many stakeholders, minister Sudhir Mungantiwar ordered the killing. He has been doing this regularly and this is the third tiger being murdered, besides several leopards and wild boars,” Maneka said siding with a range of activists who have called the killing a late night “state-ordered encounter”.
The WCD minister said the Maharashtra minister had been using Hyderabad-based shooter Shafat Ali Khan for the killing of tigers and leopards. “This time his son (Asghar Ali) has also appeared in the scene illegally to murder the tigress. His son was not authorised to kill. This is patently illegal. Despite the forest officials being committed to tranquilising, capturing and quarantining the tigress, the trigger-happy shooter has killed her on his own under the orders of Sudhir Mungantiwar,” Maneka Gandhi said in a tweet.
She said this ghastly murder had also put two cubs at the edge of a sad death.
Animal rights activists have alleged tranquilising was not even attempted and the cat was shot in cold blood with an intention to kill. People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has demanded the killing to be called a wildlife crime and investigated accordingly.
