A WILDLIFE poaching case that began with a routine tip-off along the ChhattisgarhMaharashtra border has snowballed into a nine-member arrest trail, and now a formal push for a CBI takeover, after investigators found a serving Maharashtra Police official among the accused. According to the recommendation letter sent by the Chhattisgarh Forest Department to the Principal Secretary, Home, on July 27, 2026, a copy of which has been accessed by ‘The Hitavada’, the case originated from intelligence received on June 29, 2026, that two men were transporting tiger skins from Gadchiroli into Chhattisgarh. A joint team of the Anti-Poaching Unit and West Bhanupratappur forest division intercepted the duo near Bande-Pakhanjur road around 11:27 pm, recovering two tiger skins, 13 whiskers and a motorcycle bearing registration number MH 33 AJ 3872. The two, identified as Biyendra Gedam and Baburao Madavi, both residents of Gadchiroli, told interrogators that they were linked to the Maharashtra Police. Gedam, sources privy to the letter said, is a constable with the Intelligence Cell of the Special Branch, Gadchiroli, while Madavi is described as a police informer. The letter, moved by the Forest and Climate Change Department under file number GENCOR-3506/120/2026-FOREST, asks the H o m e Department to e x p e d i t i o u s l y refer the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation, citing what it calls the case’s national security dimension and the involvement of police personnel from a neighbouring State. The duo was produced before a court in Bhanupratappur on June 30, 2026, and sent to judicial custody. A forest offence case (POR 390/09) was registered the same day. Interrogation of the duo led investigators to Netiwada, a village on the Chhattisgarh bank of the Indravati river near the inter-State border, where searches turned up snares, knives, 12 claws and four canine teeth from the homes of local suspects.

 

A third tiger skin, concealed along the riverbank, was recovered on July 5. A second case, POR 22108/01, was registered under the Indravati Tiger Reserve, and seven more persons from Bijapur district were arrested and produced before a court in Bijapur on July 6.Nine persons are now in custody in the case. Besides Gedam and Madavi, the accused include Santosh Masa Manji and Jayram Masa Manji, both residents of Yechli village in Gadchiroli, and five residents of Netiwada village in Bijapur, namely Kundan Shah Mandavi, Ramesh Vadde, Krishna Kumar Manji, Tulsi Ram Manji and Anwar Shah Mandavi. Of the nine, four are from Maharashtra, including the two with police links, while the remaining five are from Bijapur district in Chhattisgarh. Making the case for a CBI probe, the letter states that the poaching syndicate’s links stretch across both States, and that the accused are suspected of using the “difficult, interState terrain” along the Indravati river for what it describes as inter-State or even international wildlife trafficking. It adds that the arrest of accused persons linked to another State’s police intelligence apparatus has heightened the sensitivity of the case, and that, given the border area’s national security significance and the global importance of wildlife conservation, the matter warrants investigation by a centralised agency. It further notes that dismantling the wider network could require further arrests and legal proceedings outside Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. The recommendation has already secured internal clearance, from the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Head of Forest Force, and from the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) and Chief Wildlife Warden, besides State government approval, the letter states, before being forwarded to the Home Department for onward action to the CBI. The letter, filed under reference number GENCOR-3506/120/2026-FOREST, is signed by Deputy Secretary D R Sontha of the Forest and Climate Change Department.