Avni's killing: Maneka Gandhi writes to Devendra Fadnavis, asks him to 'remove' Sudhir Mungantiwar as forest minister

Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi has written to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, asking him to “remove” state Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar from his post, accusing him of being out of bounds while issuing orders to shoot tigress Avni — officially known as T1.

In the letter addressed to Fadnavis, Maneka wrote: “I request you to fix the responsibility for the killing of the tigress and consider removing Shri Mungatiwar from the responsibility of the Ministry of Environment and Forest in the state government,” India Today reported .

According to The Times of India,  Maneka said a petition is being readied to be presented in court against Avni’s “murder”.

The report also quoted wildlife activist Jerryl Banait as saying that he would soon be filing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against the Maharashtra Forest Department and Mungantiwar. Banait had earlier moved the Supreme Court against the order to shoot Avni at sight in September.

On Sunday, Maneka, in a series of tweets , had targeted the Maharashtra government  for “illegally” murdering the tigress. She had also questioned its decision to hire sharp-shooter Shafat Ali Khan, a “criminal”, for the job.

“Shafat Ali Khan has killed three tigers, at least 10 leopards, a few elephants and 300 wild boar in Chandrapur, Maharashtra. He is a criminal known for supplying guns to anti-nationals and for a suspected case of murder in Hyderabad,” Maneka had tweeted, expressing her displeasure to Fadnavis over Avni’s killing.

Fadnavis on Monday said  that if procedural lapses were found in the killing of the tigress, his government will conduct a high-level investigation into it and keep Maneka in the loop. Fadnavis also said that the decision to kill Avni had been a tough one and had to be made because of the many lives that were lost.

“It was a tough decision. The choice was quite difficult. We are all really pained that the tigress had to be killed. But the Forest Department made the decision because 13 people lost their lives because of her. We will verify the procedural objections that have been raised, particularly about the dart,” the chief minister said.

On Maneka’s tweets condemning Avni’s killing, Fadnavis had said, “Although Maneka Gandhi is a minister, she is also a core animal activist. Her words are harsh, but we must understand her feelings.”

Mungantiwar, however, had defended Avni’s killing, saying there was unrest among local farmers and Adivasis after the tigress had allegedly killed 13 people in the past two years. The forest minister said nobody in the department wanted to kill the tigress, which is why hundreds of personnel were brought in to try to capture her alive for the past three months.

Furthermore, sharp-shooter Navab Shafath Ali Khan, who was assigned the task to shoot Avni in Yavatmal by the Maharashtra government, has threatened to sue Maneka  for making “utterly defamatory and baseless allegations” against him.

“She called me a terrorist and an anti-national. Can she please tell me what act of terrorism I have indulged in?” he told The Indian Express.. “How am I an anti-national when so many state governments have been hiring my services? She can’t speak such ill against anyone just because she is a minister. I am consulting my battery of lawyers tomorrow and, if they advise me, will sue the minister.”

After nearly three months of a search operation, which involved drones, elephants and expert shooters, tigress Avni was killed in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal on Friday, 2 November.