The last few days of 2025 proved eventful for the Punjab forests and wildlife preservation department. A conscience-shocking video of a female Sambar with her face blasted on December 26 finally stirred the department to crack down. Om Prakash, a resident of Naya Nangal, was arrested the next day and from him two jaw pieces of wild animals and two explosive contraptions were recovered. Prakash was remanded to 14 days of judicial custody by additional civil judge Nidhi Saini after he was booked under Sections 9, 39, 49 and 51 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, (amended 2022).
Om Prakash under arrest and (right) explosive balls seized from him (HT Photos)
Before going to lock-up, Prakash’s questioning opened a Pandora’s box of poaching using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) coated in wheat flour, jaggery and grains to bait animals. Dogs were employed to sniff out and savage wounded creatures. It is learnt Prakash named other suspects who assisted him in setting up the explosive baits at night and in selling the meat. The name of a traditional medicine (Shilajit) shack owner of Nangal also cropped up during questioning, who is alleged to have assisted in preparing the IEDs using concoctions of potash and sulphur.
The disturbing question that arises is that the activities of poachers were well known in the Nangal forests, yet it took so long for a crackdown. It was said that bush meat was supplied to sections of law-enforcement agencies to keep the heat off poachers. Prakash, in fact, had a meat shack in Naya Nangal on which he had openly inscribed his alias, Pummy Shikari. It is to be recalled that when Roopnagar wildlife officials arrested two VIP poachers with bullet-ridden carcasses of a barking deer and wild boar on January 13, 2023, one of the first frantic cell phone calls to wildlife officials to get them freed was from none other than the then Anandpur Sahib DSP.
There was bad news from the Barapur forests of Garshankar wildlife division on the last day of 2025. A big male leopard was found dead with a clutch-wire trap around his neck. On the same day, the vigilance bureau arrested absconding block officer, Garshankar wildlife division, Rajpal Singh, who had been caught on CCTV taking a bribe of ₹15,000 for issuing a hunting permit for boars.