The trap that caught the hunters was as much a matter of chance as the animals they chose to line up in their gunsights. And the patch of land on which India's charismatic former cricket captain, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, allegedly went on his shikar was not too far from his spiritual home-the erstwhile princely seat of Pataudi in southern Haryana. On a hot and slightly windy morning of June 3, Pataudi, his cook and three others set out in an olive green Gypsy from his Vasant Vihar residence in Delhi. On the way, they were joined by the Nawab's friend Shashi Singh, a top executive with an MNC, in a luxury car.

Their destination was a small forest around Kirdaud village in Jhajjar district of Haryana. On the way, they picked up two men from Aurengpur village, notorious among the locals as "hunting guides". By sundown, the hunting party had a reasonable haul-a black buck and two wild rabbits. But around 9.30 p.m., as the vehicles carrying the hunters and their shikar emerged out of the wilds and swerved on to the Jhajjar-Rewari road, a police patrol team stopped them for routine checking, its suspicions stoked by the unusual detour taken by the vehicles in a desolate stretch of country.

PICTURE SPEAK
NO GAME THIS: Pataudi; the hunted black buck

The hunting team, says Jhajjar SP Hanief Quereshi, tried "a couple of tricks" like introducing Pataudi in an attempt to overawe the policemen but it did not work. Pataudi and his seven fellow travellers were taken to the police station at Jhajjar, where the cops registered a daily diary report (DDR) and seized their weapons and the animal carcasses but let them all go around midnight. "The local police were not sure about the legal provision under which to book them," says V.N. Rai, IG of Police (Rohtak Range).

CELEB SHIKARI

Salman Khan is another celebrity involved in a hunting case. He was booked on the basis of an eye-witness account for hunting black bucks and chinkaras near Jodhpur in 1998 and had to spend five days in custody. Saif Ali Khan is also an accused in this case and appeared once in the court to get bail. Actors Tabu, Neelam and Sonali Bendre are co-accused but have not appeared before the court even once since they were arrested soon after the incident and then granted bail. Harish Dulani, the main witness, is untraceable. Salman appeared in court on June 4 after seeking exemption many times. Final arguments are listed for July.

The police arrested Madan Singh, one of the two guides from Aurengpur, who claimed that Pataudi himself had shot at the black buck and rabbits. The injured black buck was captured and allegedly knifed to death by Pataudi and his cook. The post-mortem report of the animals strengthened the hunting charge-the black buck had died of haemorrhage due to a severed jugular vein, the wild rabbits were killed by gunshot wounds. The recovery of weapons, a co-accused's confession and the post-mortem report were sufficient evidence for the police to convert the DDR into a criminal case under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. If convicted, Pataudi and his co-accused could get upto three years of jail term. Though the Act does not specify whether it is a bailable offence, police officials point out that any offence that carries a sentence of three years or more is legally reckoned as non-bailable.

Curiously, the FIR was registered on June 5, nearly 48 hours after the incident, raising a question mark on whether the police had tried to cover up the poaching case under political pressure. Police officers attribute the delay to the weekend and the fact that wildlife officials had to be contacted for their opinion. The police were accused of pandering to Pataudi's celebrity status by granting the accused the discretion to appear before the investigating officer on June 7-a deadline that they didn't keep. The "surrender" date was extended to June 10. Pataudi's lawyer Shyam Sundar Goel told India Today that his client would seek anticipatory bail and exhaust all legal remedies before "surrendering" and would only appear before a judge. Meanwhile, Madan has retracted his statement in court and said, "I don't know anything."

PICTURE SPEAK

THE EVIDENCE: Photographs of the killed rabbits

There are other rumours floating around. For one, Maneka Gandhi, president of People for Animals and BJP MP, accused the Congress-led Haryana Government of "attempting to shield Pataudi", calling his family "killers of wildlife". She alleges, "Four years ago Pataudi, his wife Sharmila Tagore and their actor son Saif Ali Khan had killed 2,000 birds on a single day in a bird park in Jammu and Kashmir. The matter had been swept under the carpet then." Maneka's allegation coupled with a surreptitious attempt by People for Animals activists to acquire the carcasses' post-mortem from the Delhi Zoo authorities prompted Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda to deny any political pressure to bail out Pataudi. "The police would bring the guilty to book no matter what the status of the accused," said Hooda.

Even the police deny any pressure and were quick to turn the heat on the accused after they failed to appear before the Jhajjar police. The police are now verifying the ownership of the firearms recovered from the Gypsy which is registered in Pataudi's name.

The cricketer they call Tiger is now being hunted himself.

-with Manoj Verma

Index