Blood In The Marshes

Kaziranga Grapples With Rampant Rhino Poaching and Criticism of the Park Authorities' Trigger-happy Response to the Menace.

- Kaushik Deka

DECEMBER 12, 2010. 4.30 AM. On that foggy winter morning, Bhupen Hazarika, a 27-year-old home guard deployed at the Kaziranga National Park (KNP), had just woken up. He had to get ready to take charge from the night patrol team, which was returning to the Tutoni antipoaching camp, in the Bagori range of the park. Suddenly, he heard some noise, in the distance. Curious, he went out with his .303 rifle and a torch. A colleague of his from the night patrol team was taking cover behind a tree. As he looked around, Hazarika noticed a shadow, hidden in the tall grass to the right of his colleague, about to take aim at him. Without wasting a second, Hazarika opened fire at the shadow and started chasing another that leapt out of the bushes. A couple of minutes later, when the figure did not stop despite repeated warnings, Hazarika shot him in the leg. The man fell, but before anyone could reach him, he put a pistol to his head and shot himself. He was later identified as Uttam Patir, a Mising tribal from Dhanbari village, 20 km away from where he died.

Two years later, Hazarika was given the Vanya Prani Mitra Award, constituted by the World Wildlife Foundation, India, and the Assam forest department in recognition of outstanding contribution to wildlife conservation.

Yet the apparent hero from the frontlines of the war against poaching was painted among the villains in a documentary BBC aired last month. Titled Killing for Conservation, the feature castigated Kaziranga authorities for “exceptional measures” against poachers and what amounted to ‘shoot at sight’ orders. The documentary has since invited a storm of indignation, with the environment ministry and the National Tiger Conservation Authority seeking the blacklisting of the channel’s South Asia correspondent Justin Rowlatt, who made the documentary, and banning the channel from filming in any tiger reserve for five years.