Three Portuguese nationals held by forest officials for trespassing into Bandipur Tiger Reserve

The Karnataka Forest Department (KFD) officials on Sunday evening detained three Portuguese nationals for allegedly trespassing into Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Chamarajanagar district. The trio was caught while roaming inside the Tiger Reserve on a bullet motorcycle at a time when the Reserve is closed for the public due to lockdown against COVID-19.

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According to the forest officials, the trio has been identified as Nuno Ricardo Bernardes Miranda Paciencia, Angelo Miguel Garrido and Tomas Pinho Marquez. Giving more details about the incident, T Balachandra, Conservator of Forests and Field Director of Bandipur Tiger Reserve told DH that all the three have been handed over to the Gundlupet police on Monday.

“Our frontline staffers alerted us about the people's movement inside the Tiger Reserve on Sunday afternoon. At around 4:00 pm on Sunday, we detained them and interrogated them. During the interrogation, they refused to cooperate with our officials and behaved very rudely with the Range officials. Since we do not have power under the law to book any foreign national, we only registered a Forest Offence Case (FOC) under Karnataka Forest Act and produced them before the magistrate who handed them to the local police,” Balachandra explained. The department has seized the trio’s bullet vehicles and kept them in the department custody.

The Forest Department officials further explained, “As per the papers they produced, they were not supposed to travel out of Bengaluru where they were assisting a premier organisation in maintaining aircraft. But all the three had hired bullet motorcycles and entered the forest area without prior permission especially when the Reserve is closed for the public due to lockdown rules against the COVID-19.”