Trucks carrying six Asiatic lions from Gujarat stopped by Bihar's prohibition officials on plea of checking liquor smuggling

PATNA: A piquant situation arose at the Interstate check-post near Mohania in Kaimur district in the wee hours on Sunday after a team of prohibition and excise department officials stopped a forest department’s motorcade including two big trucks carrying six Asiatic lions for the Rajgir zoo safari, a dream project of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar.
The Asiatic lions were being brought to Rajgir from the Sakkarbaug zoological park, Junagadh, Gujarat, in exchange for other animals from Bihar-based zoo.
Sources in the Bihar’s environment, forest & climate change department said, as soon as the forest officials’ motorcade, comprising four cars and two big trucks, approached the UP-Bihar interstate border check-post near Mohania around 3 am on Sunday morning, the prohibition officials stopped the motorcade on the plea of inspecting all the vehicles to check whether liquors are loaded inside them or not.
The Indian Made foreign liquors (IMFLs) are generally smuggled into Bihar through this road route. The sale and consumption of liquors are totally banned in Bihar since April, 2016.
As their motorcade was stopped, the forest officials led by the Rajgir zoo safari’s deputy director Ambika Sharan Sinha, showed their identity cards, the animal transit permit and other necessary papers issued by the Central Zoo Authority to the prohibition officials and requested them to allow the vehicles carrying Asiatic lions to start their onwards journey for Rajgir, so that the animals could reach the zoo safari within the stipulated time frame.
But the prohibition officials insisted on conducting thorough checking inside all the vehicles including the two big trucks carrying the lions, on the plea that how could they be sure that liquors were not being carried inside the vehicles.
On the contrary, the forest officials refused to allow checking in the trucks carrying the six Asiatic lions on the plea that it would disturb the animals and “may lead to causing mental stress on lions.”
This led to a heated argument between the forest officials and the prohibition department employees at the check-post. Sources said as no party was ready to budge, the heated arguments continued for more than an hour at the check-post.
The situation became more aggressive after the forest officials threatened to arrest the prohibition officials under the provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act. In turn, the excise officials threatened to arrest the forest officials under the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act.
“Most of the so-called personnel of the prohibition department were in plainclothes. We were not sure whether they were actual employees of the prohibition department. They were not wearing their identity cards. When we started making a video of their act through mobile phones, some of them began dispersing. We somehow managed to come out of the check-post after being halted for more than one and a quarter hours,” one of the forest officials who was part of the lion carrying team, told TOI over phone on Sunday. The official did not want to be identified.
He said all the six lions were safely carried up to the Rajgir zoo safari. The motorcade reached Rajgir around 12 on Sunday afternoon.
Contacted over phone, Dev Vrat Kumar, an excise inspector posted at Mohania check-post, confirmed the heated arguments with the forest officials. “Excise personnel stopped the forest department’s vehicles as part of their duty. We are deputed at the check-post mainly to check whether liquors are not being smuggled through any vehicles,” the excise inspector told TOI.
Sources said, the Rajgir zoo safari’s deputy director Sinha has reported the matter to the higher authorities in the environment, forest and climate change department and sought appropriate action against the persons who stopped the vehicles carrying lions.