Maneka slams Maharashtra govt over tigress killing
NEW DELHI: Union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Sunday slammed the Maharashtra government over the killing of the man-eater tigress Avni.
Maneka Gandhi, a staunch animal activist and part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet, accused the state forest minister of hiring a “trigger-happy shooter” to slay the tiger.
“It is nothing but a straight case of crime”, said Gandhi, a member of the ruling BJP, describing the shooting as a “ghastly murder.”
“I am definitely going to take up this case of utter lack of empathy for animals as a test case. Legally, criminally as well as politically,” she posted on Twitter.
She accused the state’s Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar — also from the BJP — of ignoring appeals to
Maneka Gandhi, a staunch animal activist and part of Modi’s cabinet, accused the state forest minister of hiring a “triggerhappy shooter” to slay the tiger
call off the hunt for the tiger known officially as T1 and popularly as Avni.
Gandhi said she will take up the matter “very strongly” with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
Avni was a five-year-old tigress identified as “T1” who had created terror in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha forests.
Avni died after three months of a massive hunt undertaken with the help of trap cameras, drones, trained sniffer dogs along with a team of forest department officials and spotters.
As per the Supreme Court directives, forest department officials were required to first tranquilize and trap her, but in Saturday’s operation, she allegedly attacked the stalking team which shot her.