Bhubaneswar: Amid growing threats of illegal home-made explosives to poach animals in the state’s wildlife corridors, Odisha Police joined hands with the Forest personnel to intensify joint patrolling and ground-level intelligence sharing to arrest dangerous ploys by lawbreakers.
The explosive trap using a mixture of ‘gandhak-potash’ (potassium nitrate and sulphur), crushed stones and other materials, before covering it with wheat dough, has become a cause of worry for forest personnel, with reports of wild animals and domestic animals foraging in the forest falling prey to the dangerous practice.
A high-level virtual coordination meeting chaired by the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Central Range, Cuttack, Satyajit Naik, was held Wednesday to curb the alarming rise in bait bombs employed by the poachers targeting the wild animals.
This strategic summit brought together the Superintendents of Police from the Central Range Districts, the Field Director of Satkosia Tiger Reserve, and Divisional Forest Officers of the Athgarh and Cuttack Divisions to address the alarming rise of “bait bombs” within the sensitive landscapes of Athgarh, Badamba, and Narasinghpur.
The coordination meeting identified these crude yet deadly devices—often concealed in food items— as a critical crisis that severely undermines conservation efforts while posing an indiscriminate and lethal risk to livestock and public safety.
To combat this menace, IGP directed the Odisha Police and Satkosia Tiger Reserve authorities to formally merge their operational capabilities into a unified front, establishing a “zero-tolerance” policy towards the manufacture and deployment of illegal explosive devices.
The core of this offensive includes the immediate implementation of joint intelligence gathering, where law enforcement and forest officials will share real-time data to identify poaching networks and manufacturing hubs.
Authorities emphasised neutralising the explosive threat and fortifying the safety of the Satkosia corridor for its inhabitants and the animals that traverse it.
By aligning the tactical expertise of the police with the specialised ground knowledge of the Forest department, the state aims to create a high-security environment that deters such criminal activities permanently.
