Nepal: The Chitwan District Forest Office (DFO) on March 9 arrested Royal Nepal Army (RNA) Colonel Dilip Shumsher Rana on a charge of having shot a barking deer in the Royal Chitwan National Park. But when Park security guards approached him, he resisted and instead threatened to shoot them too.

The next day, the colonel and his accomplice were rescued from detention at the Tikauli-based Armed Forest Guard Training Centre by a fellow army officer, who walked into the DFO office and escorted him back to the safety of a nearby army camp, without the DFO’s permission.

Major Binod Shrestha from the RNA’s Bharatpur-based Pashupati Prasad Barracks escorted the accused, his vehicle and other items, back to his barracks.

Poaching in the national park is against the law and punishable by up to one year in jail or a fine of Rs 10,000. The deer was shot on the perimeter of the park, which is a major habitat of the endangered one-horned rhino.

Colonel Rana and his nephew Arun Shumshere were apprehended near the Jutpani-based Range Post while they were loading the carcass into their vehicle, DFO Chief Madhav Acharya told The Kathmandu Post. Security guards, led by Assistant Forest Officer Ambika Poudel, seized a blood-stained poncho, a pair of binoculars, a knife, a sword, and a torch from them.

A DFO source, however, said two others fled along with guns as soon as the security guards approached the spot. One of the absconding poachers has been identified as Dipak Singh from Hetauda, the DFO said, quoting those in custody.

Singh has been found poaching in the national park earlier also, but has always given the authorities the slip, and remained scot-free, the source said.

Colonel Rana first attempted to bribe Poudel, who flatly refused the temptation, Ranger from the Jutpani-based Range Post Dhan Bahadur KC said. He said the Colonel also threatened to kill them, saying he was an RNA officer.

Sources in the RNA said that army personnel are handed over to the army to be court-martialed, even if they have committed a crime in a civilian area. A DFO officer said the RNA had acted high-handedly in escorting Arun Shumsher, a civilian, to the army barracks.

Denying the charges, Colonel Rana accused the forest guards of arresting him at a time when he was following the route from Hetauda to check his faulty transmission. He claimed that he was lost on the route.

Asked why he was using an unfamiliar route, he claimed he knew the route, and insisted that he did not kill the deer confiscated "close to his vehicle."

"I told them that I am an army officer. I asked them not to do any harm to me warning them that their actions would prove counter productive. But they did

not listen to my request," Colonel Rana told reporters while under detention.

The DFO source said that Colonel Rana is probably the first army personnel to be arrested on charges of poaching a wild animal.

From Mr.Mangal Shakya in Chitwan