Bhubaneswar: The Opposition BJD Saturday demanded a high-level, multi-agency probe involving the CBI, NIA and IB into the recovery of five orangutans in a forest in Odisha, alleging that the incident exposed serious security lapses along the country’s international borders.
The five infant orangutans were rescued from a forest at Bhograi in Baleshwar district September 8.
Addressing a press conference, Bhograi BJD MLA Goutam Buddha Das said Odisha Police’s Special Task Force (STF) and the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) should continue their investigation into the alleged trafficking of the animals, but the matter should not be restricted to wildlife probe.
The incident poses a serious threat to the country’s security, and therefore a high-level professional investigation is needed, he said.
The ruling BJP rejected the demand, saying the STF and WCCB were professional agencies and carrying out their investigation.
The joint inquiry will certainly help to arrest the culprits. Please don’t politicise everything, including the orangutan matter, BJP MLA Irasish Acharya told reporters.
Das questioned how live orangutans could be transported across several states and brought to Bhograi if security agencies were effectively checking the movement of illegal goods.
If live orangutans could be transported easily till Bhograi in Baleshwar, terrorists, arms, fake notes, drugs and other incriminating materials could easily reach Baleshwar, where sensitive defence installations are present, he said.
Das said senior government officials and the state’s forest minister had described the incident as a case of international wildlife trafficking and therefore the investigation should be expanded.
He also claimed that five days after the incident came to light, the investigators had not detained anyone or traced the vehicles allegedly used to transport the animals.
Das said there was a possibility that the orangutans had been brought into India through sea routes and called for strengthening marine police stations along the eastern coast.
Officials on record have said the orangutans might have travelled to Bhograi from the international border in Mizoram to West Bengal and then Odisha. There is no such security checking provision through the Digha-Udaipur-Chandaneswar and Bhograi route. The traffickers might have used the rural roads to reach Bhograi, he said.
Therefore, anti-national elements can reach Chandipur or APJ Abdul Kalam Island in Baleshwar and Bhadrak coast, the BJD MLA pointed out.
Former Union Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh also suspected international wildlife trafficking in the case.
I was also very surprised to read about the orangutans found in the forests of Odisha. Obviously there is an international smuggling syndicate at work here, Ramesh said in a post on X.
Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president Bhakta Charan Das said orangutans were not native to India and alleged that they had been trafficked and abandoned in Baleshwar .
Orangutans are not native to India. They were definitely trafficked and abandoned in the forests of Baleshwar by traffickers who feared capture. Forest officials must investigate this case and rehabilitate them suitably in the Northeast or Western Ghats, he said.
The animals are currently at Nandankanan Zoological Park in Bhubaneswar, where they have been kept in a temperature-controlled quarantine facility.
Aditya Acharya, head of the veterinary department at Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT), said the animals were under observation.
The baby orangutans appear to be cheerful. But they miss the presence of their mothers. The orangutans usually remain close to their mothers for three to four years after birth before living independently, he said.