Bhubaneswar/Mayurbhanj: Jashipur police on Wednesday night arrested three absconding Forest staff from Bhubaneswar in connection with the death of Turam Purti, a temporary Forest worker who was the only witness in the case pertaining to the poaching and burning of a tusker in the Simlipal Tiger Reserve in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha.
The arrested Forest personnel include Jenabil ranger in-charge Shiv Shankar Samal, forest guard Chandrabhanu Behera and STP Binode Kumar Das. The three accused were first suspended and then arrested following a probe by Jashipur police on the basis of a complaint filed by Turam’s wife Chilam Purty. However, they managed to escape while on bail and were declared absconding.
According to sources, Turam Purti, who was the sole eye witness in the case, was allegedly severely beaten up by Jenabil range ranger Shiv Shankar Samal, Vinod Das Chandrabhanu Behera. As a result, he fell sick and was taken to a medical facility in Jashipur. As his condition deteriorated, he was first shifted to Karanjia and later to the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, where he breathed his last on December 15, 2022.
Soon after the incident, Chilam Purti lodged a complaint at the Yashipur police station alleging that her husband was beaten up and forcibly administered an injection by the accused. Chilam also alleged that later the accused tried to dump her husband’s dead body in the forest.
It is worth mentioning here that the three Forest staff had allegedly burnt an elephant carcass and thrown the charred remains to a nearby stream to destroy the evidence after poachers killed the jumbo and removed its tusks in the core area of the tiger reserve. Purty, who was a temporary forest department staff, was present there and he sent some photos of the incident to the higher authorities.
