Wednesday, June 8, 2016 BB DECCAN HERALD 3

Metro Lokayukta sends report to Guvon cases against Sham Bhatt. P5 »

Bosky Khanna

BENGALURU: Bengaluruwears many hats – IT Hub,Startup Capital, Science Cityand the like. But in the pastfew years, the city has qui-etly emerged as a centre forillegal wildlife trade.

Forest department officialsand sleuths from the CriminalInvestigation Department’sForestCellsayBengaluruis theprime spot for wildlife activityas it is well connected by road,rail and air. Besides, severalwildlife traders are using theInternet to interact withwildlife traders and buyersacross the world to sell theirproducts.

In Karnataka, Mysurustands first in illegal wildlifetrade because of its proximityto prime forests – Nagaraholeand Bandipur tiger reserves.

Head of Traffic India(Wildlife) Shekhar Kumar Ni-raj said there was an increasein online wildlife trade.

“They can fake their identityto interact with customers andthe account is not used afterone transaction. So, it becomesa challenge to track themdown,” he says.

He pointed out that though

tiger products and ivory werein demand globally, especiallyin China and South Korea, thedemand for pangolin has alsoseen a rise in Nepal,Bangladesh and America. Theelite in Bengaluru are alsorushing for illegal products toflaunt their status symbol. Thedemand includes Marmosetmonkeys, Capuchin monkeys,Chimpanzees, Langoors, Nil-giri Langoors, exotic birds,

pangolin, star tortoise, turtles,Alexandrine parakeets andspotted black terrapins.

Wildlife warden SharatBabu says many websites alsosell products like snares andtraps to capture wild animals.

“There is no regulation as towhat can be sold and what can-not be. It is an open market.This has also made the city ahub of wildlife trade. In Ben-galuru, on an average, at least

one seizure takes place everymonth,while it is 12acrossKar-nataka. Last year, the CID For-est Cell booked 50 cases ofpoaching in the state and forthe year 2016, up to April, 14cases have been booked.

Most of these cases were inBengaluru and surroundingareas. These included ivory,tiger and leopard pelts andweapons.

Principal Chief Conservatorof Forests (Wildlife) B J Hos-math told Deccan Herald thatone cannot say that wildlifepoaching cases have comedown or have increased. Butcases keep happening and nowthe department is taking thehelpof legalexpertsto improveits ability to book cases and pe-nalise offenders.

For the past one year, the de-partment has been taking thehelp of retired Public Prosecu-tor Prakash Shetty who hasbeen helping in strengtheningthe cases and bringing poach-ers to book, besides helpingsolve the cases.

Shetty is also training thestaff in short-term courses andlegal courses. Apart from this,the help of experts is also beingtaken to train and strengthenthe field staff.DH News Service

City fast emerging ashubof illegalwildlife tradeGoodconnectivity, Internetusespurunlawfulenterprise

The demand for pangolin has seen a rise in Nepal,Bangladesh and America. DH FILE PHOTO

BENGALURU: A 34-year-oldman went to the home of hiswife’s paramour and fatallystabbed him before his par-ents. The incident occurredat H Gollahalli in Kaggalipu-ra on Monday night, policesaid.

Lohith, a manual labourer,had left his home on some per-sonalerrandonSundayandre-turned a few hours later. Ashock awaited him. He foundhis wife in a compromising po-sition with Hemanth, a cabdriver who lived in the same lo-cality.Heconfrontedhim, lead-ing to a heated argument and

anexchangeofprofanitieswithhim. Neighbours, however, in-tervened and sent Hemanthhome.

Boiling pointAccording to the jurisdictionalKaggallipura police, Lohithwas aware of his wife’s affairandhadwarnedherinthepast.But she didn’t appear to havepaid heed. Things reached aboilingpointforLohithonSun-day.

Later that night, he quar-reled with his wife and askedherto callHemanthhome,say-ing he wantedto settle themat-

ter once and for all. Thewoman feared her husbandmight kill Hemanth. Strickenby fear, she went into the bed-roomandtriedcommittingsui-cide by hanging herself. Lohithquickly checked on her andfound her hanging. He imme-diately brought her down andtook her to hospital. She sur-vived.

Lohith then decided to elim-inate Hemanth. He went to hishome on Monday night andstabbedhimtodeathbeforehisparents, and fled the spot. He-manth’s parents called the po-lice, who quickly detained Lo-

hithathishomeashewasplan-ning to escape. During interro-gation, Lohith told the policethat he got upset after findinghis wife with another man. Heinitially thought he could re-solve the issue but felt humili-ated and decided to kill He-manth.

Police said Hemanth had acriminalrecord.Hewasnamedin a murder case at the By-atarayanapura police station.Besides, thereweredacoitycas-es against him at the Hanu-mantha Nagar and Kumbalgo-du police stations.DH News Service

BENGALURU: The Commer-cial Street police arrested a20-year-old woman whostole jewels from severaljewellery showroomsacross the city by posing asa customer.

The accused, Jyothi, is a res-ident of Kanchenahalli in RajaRajeshwari Nagar. The policehave recovered at least 143grams of gold valuables valuedat Rs 4.35 lakh.

Police said Jyothi would visitvarious jewellery showroomsposing as a customer and askthe staff to show her variousdesigns and patterns of orna-ments.

While the staff would getbusy showing her the orna-ments, she would divert theirattention and siphon off an or-nament into her purse. Shewould then inform them thatshe was not happy with the de-signs and would walk away.While arranging the jewelsback in the display rack, thestaff would notice the orna-ment missing. After checkingthe CCTV footage, they wouldfind the woman walking awaywith the ornament.

“She tried this trick at jew-ellery showrooms on the MGRoad, Mahalakshmi Layout,Dickenson Road and Siddapur.While escaping with a gold or-nament from a showroom onDickenson Road a few monthsago, her face was clearly cap-tured by CCTV cameras. Wecirculated the photo among allthe showrooms in the city andasked the owners to inform uson seeing the woman,”a seniorpolice officer said.

“A week ago, Jyothi visitedthe Malabar jewellery show-room on Dickenson Road. Thestaff there recognised her andalerted the police, who de-tained her. During interroga-tion, she confessed to havecommitted the offences. Goldvaluables were recovered fromherhouseandfromafewpawnbrokers,” the officer added.

A case has been registeredat the Commercial Street po-lice station.DH News Service

Posing as customer,she stole ornamentsfrom showrooms

Man goes to home of wife’s paramour,kills him before his parents

Jyothi in police custody.

Crime beat

Newlywedmanfalls todeath from18th floor flat

»A 18-year-old electriciandied after he accidentally

fell from the 18th floor of anapartment on Sarjapur Roadwhile fixing an air conditioner(AC) on Monday evening.

Imran, a native of Mangalu-ru owned an AC repair shop inBommanahalli. On Mondaynoon, he and his friend wentto a flat at the apartment to fixa new AC.

He slipped and fell while fit-ting the output box above thewindow outside the flat, The

residents, who heard a thud,found Imran lying dead in apool of blood, the policeadded.

Imran was recently marriedand had come down to theCity a few months ago insearch of work. He was resid-ing in Bommanahalli herewhile his wife lives in Man-galuru.

The HSR Layout policehave registered a case of negli-gence leading to death againstthe flat owner in HSR Layout.

PoliceSanghapresidentinCCBcustodytill June18

»A court on Tuesday re-manded V Shashidhar,

president of Akhila KarnatakaPolice Mahasangha (All Kar-nataka Police Association), inthe custody of the CentralCrime Branch (CCB) till June18 for a detailed investigationof his role in instigating con-stables to go on mass protestleave on June 4.

Shashidhar pleaded inno-cence before the first Addi-tional Chief MetropolitanMagistrate and claimed thatthe police had tortured him.He said he was arrested at the

behest of Chief Minister Sid-daramaiah and Home Minis-ter G Parameshwara and thatthe police didn’t let him seeklegal counsel. Police told thecourt that some “anti-social el-ements”had conspired to in-stigate the constables againstthe top brass. Some police of-ficers who were dismissed forindiscipline had provoked theconstables, the court was toldand requested to remandShashidhar in police custody.

The court adjourned hear-ing on Shashidhar’s bail peti-tion until Thursday.

Woman’s charredbodyfound in trolleybag

»A charred body of awoman was found in a

trolley bag on a vacant landbelonging to the KIADB inBagalur on Tuesday morning.

Passersby informed the po-lice, who visited the spot andfound that the body was com-pletely burnt along with thetrolley bag. It is suspected thatthe victim might be a womanaged between 20 and 30years. She might have beenmurdered elsewhere and the

body might have beendumped there.

Police informed that thebody had been shifted forpost-mortem and the doctorswould be able to assess herage and the manner in whichshe was murdered. Other po-lice stations have been alerted.Police are also looking formissing complaints lodged inother police stations. A casehas been registered with theBagalur police station.

RiderkilledasBMTCbusshoveshisbike

»A 37-year-old man ridingback home died after a

BMTC bus ran him over nearmarket road in Madiwala,south Bengaluru, on Mondaynight.

Boopalan Ponnuraj, a na-tive of Tamil Nadu, was on hisway to BTM Layout homewhen the bus shoved his mo-torcycle. He lost balance andfell down. Just then, the rearwheel of bus ran him over.Passersby took him to a hospi-tal but he was declared

brought dead. The jurisdic-tional Madiwala traffic policearrived at the spot and seizedthe bus that was plying fromJeevan Bima Nagar to Madi-wala, and arrested its driver,Sunil Kumar.

Eyewitnesses told the policethat since it was raining, thebus driver apparently failed tonotice the rider and brushedpast the two-wheeler. Ponnu-raj was a housekeeping execu-tive at a hotel on Old AirportRoad.

Reshma Ravishanker

BENGALURU: Dusty streetsand dug-up narrow crossroads have paralysed trafficin Subramanyanagar, Rajaji-nagar, in northern Bengalu-ru, making it a daily night-mare for local residents formore than three weeks now.

A stretch on Rajkumar Roadnear Orion Mall has beenblocked for construction of anunderpass, while cross roadshave been dug up for laying ofsanitary pipes.

Two hospitals are located onthe main road which has beenrestricted for traffic. Blaringambulance sirens, residentssay, draw them outdoors in theevening and force them tomanage traffic on the crossroads. Ramu (name changed),who runs a shop on Subra-

manyanagar main road, saidthey sprinkled water duringpeak hours to minimise thedust on the roads.

“Shopkeepers here taketurns to do it. When the num-berofvehiclesgoesup, thedustis too much to bear. This is ourtemporaryfixfortheproblem,”he said.

A policeman manning thejunction said the traffic prob-lem would have been min-imised if the sanitary work wastaken up after completion ofthe underpass.

Underpass work delayedThe construction of the pro-posed uni-directional two-laneRajajinagar underpass hasbeen delayed by a year.

A senior BBMP official saidthey had to postpone the workuntil the construction of Raja-

jinagar 1st Block flyover (whichhas now been made a signal-free zone by linking the part ofthe road from MahalakshmiLayout towards City Hospital,Rajajinagar) was complete.

“Both are major roads. Bus-es that ply on the West ofChord Road are being divertedto Rajkumar Road because ofthe construction. Hence, thiswork had to be put on hold,”hesaid.

The official said the workwouldbecompletedinthenextfourmonthsandtheunderpasswould ease traffic on thestretch. Rs 35 crore has beenallocated for construction ofthis underpass and improve-ment of the corridor. Underthis project, footpaths will beimprovedandtheroadasphalt-ed, he said.DH News Service

SportseventstoraisefundsforNandiHillsBENGALURU, DHNS: A num-ber of sports activities havelined up for the much-awaited‘Nandi Hillathon’on June 12 atNandi Hills located about 65km from Bengaluru.

Organised by United WayBengaluru, the event is aimedat raising funds for the restora-tion of Nandi Hills and lakes inBengaluru, which are victimsof growing pollution.

Sridhar Pabbisetty of theUnitedWayBengalurutoldthisnewspaperthatvariouspro-en-vironment organisations havecome together to support theevent. “We want to convey tothe people the significance ofenhancing biodiversity at Nan-di Hills, making the place plas-tic-free,rejuvenatingArkavathiriver,whichoriginatesfromtheHills, and developing it as anecological hotspot,” he said.

Another objective of theevent, he said, was to rejuve-nate the lakes and parks andprotection of historical monu-ments. UWB will use the fundsto organise events like ‘KereHabba’ to enlighten peopleabout the significance of lakes.As many as 70 transgenderswill also take part in the event.The organisers have involvedthem to send across the mes-sage of gender equality. UWBhas restored many lakesthrough various fund-raisingevents. The NGO has revived16 water bodies, includingKaikondarahalli lake.

Staffofa jewelleryshoponDickensonRoadalertedcops

Bosky Khanna

BENGALURU: Urbanisationhas had a major impact onland use of BannerghattaNational Park (BNP), locat-ed around 25 km from thecity.

A study by Energy and Wet-lands Group, Centre for Eco-logical Sciences, IISc, on theecologically sensitive zones ofBNP shows that the forestpatch spread across 102.7sqkm, is undergoing severeland cover changes due to an-thropogenic pressures. An-thropogenic chiefly refers tothe pollution caused by hu-man beings.

The land analysis was car-ried out in BNP and buffer re-gions of five kilometres. Landuse changes within BNP re-gion are less compared to thebuffer region. The moist de-ciduous forest which covered50.4% of the area in 1973 hadcome down to 28.5% in 2015due to anthropogenic pres-sure, Prof T V Ramachandra,from CES, IISc, told DeccanHerald.

BNP Deputy Conservator ofForests Sunil Panwar said,“The department commis-sioned this study because wewanted to get a scientific opin-ion to preserve forest land andcorridors. Nothing can bedone about changes in privateland use, and controlling itsimpact on forest lands can bea challenge. We have toanalyse the report beforechalking future plans.”

Forests in Ragihalli, Yela-vantha and Bettahalli regionswith good protection meas-ures show minimal distur-bance. However, implicationsof unplanned urbanisation areevident in the buffer regions.Land use analysis in the bufferregion (5 km) highlights ur-

LandusechangeinBannerghattabufferzones, findsstudy

ban sprawl in peri-urban re-gions. It has fragmented anddispersed urban patches inthe periphery, amounting to5,462 hectares of built-uparea. The region has lostmoist deciduous cover whichhas come down from 26.1% to13.8 % with an increase in hor-ticulture, from 8.5 to 11% (be-tween 1973 and 2015).

The region has lost largetracts of deciduous cover inKanakapura and Anekaltaluks due to intensified horti-culture activities and defor-estation, Ramachandraadded. Analysis shows thatthere are 69 villages in theEcologically Sensitive Re-gions-1 (regions of high sensi-tivity according to the ForestAct), 78 villages are in ESR- 2(regions of higher sensitivity)and 79 villages in ESR- 3 (re-gions of high sensitivity) and176 villages in ESR- 4 (in thebuffer regions spread across10 km which are moderatelysensitive). The study showsthere are 120 human settle-ments located within five kilo-metres radius of BNP bound-ary and five humansettlements inside BNP limits.Tribal settlements dominateclose to BNP boundary in thesouth-east and south-west anddepend on agricultural live-stock for livelihood.

The area needs protectionespecially because it houses ahealthy population of ele-phants, tigers and leopards.BNP is a prime elephant corri-dor. Conservation has becomea challenging task, especiallyin the wake of increasing hu-man pressures on the ecosys-tem. An anthropogenic distur-bance on landscape is of muchhigher intensity compared tonatural disturbances like windand fire, Ramachandra said.DH News Service

IN FOCUS: Underpass work on Dr Rajkumar Road has paralysed traffic in Rajajinagar andSubramanyanagar. DH PHOTO

Construction of underpassjams traffic in Rajajinagar

BENGALURU: Mayor B N Man-junath Reddy on Tuesday di-rected the BBMP officials to re-lease Rs 4 crore for theimprovement of stormwaterdrains in flood-prone areas toavoid any untoward incidentsduring rains.

The Mayor, who inspectedthe low-lying areas of Rajyot-

sava Nagar, Madiwala and Vas-anthapura, instructed the offi-cials to prevent waterloggingin the areas.

Household articles werewashed away as rainwatergushed into several houses inSannappana Gundi area, re-cently.DH News Service

Rs4crforimprovingSWDs

SENIOR COP: Whileescaping with a goldornament from ashowroom on Dicken-son Road a few monthsago, her face was clear-ly captured by CCTVcameras. We circulatedthe photo among allthe showrooms in thecity and asked theowners to inform us onseeing the woman.

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Urban sprawl