In order to conceal their real identity from the police, hardened criminals often resort to the subterfuge of aliases. Nicknames like ‘Chikna’, ‘Mirchi’, ‘Lamboo’, ‘Kala’, ‘Munna’, ‘Babloo’ etc., have been common in the underworld. But at least on one occasion, we thought of giving a nickname to a hardcore criminal ourselves, so as to facilitate and enhance the secrecy of our operation. And that is how Murari Lal came into existence. A special team had been constituted to arrest him but his real identity was known only to three officers at the top of the hierarchy.

Sariska Wildlife Park is spread out over 800 sq kms in Alwar district of Rajasthan. It was declared as a Wildlife Reserve in 1958 and came under Project ‘Tiger’ in 1979 as Sariska Tiger Reserve. Disquieting reports on the extensive poaching in Sariska had been coming in for quite some time. But by 2004 these had assumed scandalous proportions as the poachers took a heavy toll with all the remaining eighteen tigers disappearing between September and December of that year.

One of the most prestigious tiger reserves of the country bustling with a few hundred of them in the 1970s, was left with a zero population in 2005. It was a worldwide scandal of the highest order with conservationists coming down heavily on the authorities. Even then Minister of Environment Namo Naryan Meena had to admit in Parliament, “The entire tiger population seems to have become extinct primarily because of poaching”. Concerned as he was, the then Prime Minister lost no time, visited Sariska in March 2005 to review the situation first hand and thereafter handed over the case to the CBI.

After this unprecedented admonition of local authorities from the Prime Minister himself, the CBI also took it up as a challenge and immediately swung into action. The case had already drawn sufficient attention and some fragments of information about goings-on at Sariska had also begun to appear in the media. This was the moment when as professionals we decided to work on the case independently, however, without ever coming in the way of CBI. Having earlier worked in the crime branch of Delhi Police for over four years, one had some idea of the clandestine wild life trade and we began to go through old records. One name of a resident of Jaipur figured repeatedly in our research. Considering his extensive involvement, his roots in Rajasthan and the fact he had been underground for a long time made him a prime suspect and that is how Murari Lal came into being in my office. As it was a very hush-hush exercise, only Joy Tirkey, an ACP was assigned this task under the guidance of Ranjit Narayan, a Joint Commissioner. They were specifically asked not to involve anyone else in the matter for the sake of confidentiality. This, however, was somewhat of a handicap as the progress became rather slow.

Enquiries were initiated in an extremely discreet manner about Murari Lal and after much toil it was learnt that our suspect belonged to the Gihara tribe of Rajasthan. It was also learnt that some of the community lived in Sadar Bazaar area of Old Delhi. As we wanted to avoid going to the local police, it took us some time, but an interesting fact came to light and that was that ‘Gully Gyarah’ was in fact not ‘Gyarah’ or ‘11’ but ‘Gully Gihara’. One had always wondered that while ‘Gully no. 11’ existed but what about nos. ‘10’ or ‘12’. Finally, the mystery was solved. All our focus now shifted to this area.

Over a period of time, some smart undercover work by young Joy Tirkey gave us limited access to a native of Gully Gihara, which proved to be the proverbial chink we had been looking for all along. With the help of this individual, but without arousing any suspicion we were able to identify a shop once owned by Murari Lal. Inquiries revealed that it had been sold and resold on a number of occasions but now there was no trace of the original owner. The municipal records were not of much help, but these led us to the niece of our suspect. We hoped that we could reach him by tailing her or possibly locate a phone number which she called repeatedly. Working without the support of sufficient men on ground was becoming a major handicap, nevertheless, our patience had ensured complete secrecy.

On the other hand, we tried to ascertain the progress made by CBI, which even after two months was quite peripheral. The niece of the suspect was obviously well briefed and had been taking all possible precautions not to directly contact Murari Lal. But those days, one did not have the facility of a recharge on the phone digitally, and payments had to be made in cash for SIM cards. This helped us to get a phone number, but tracing its location was becoming very difficult. We were now almost closing in on our target but still quite far physically. From all available information we finally narrowed it down to East Patel Nagar, where he could be in hiding. This is a very congested area and making physical enquiries without arousing suspicion was almost impossible.

Local Municipal records, RWA directories and various other records of the locality did not show up his name. During the course of our discussions on the progress of the case, one day we tried to analyse the mind of Murari Lal. It was thought that he would also be trying to ascertain what the CBI was up to and would be possibly seeking the help of newspapers etc. Accordingly, we narrowed down to two vernacular newspapers, Dainik Bhaskar and Rajasthan Patrika which were most likely to be read by Murari Lal to keep himself abreast of the developments. As such we contacted newspaper hawkers who distributed Rajasthan Patrika in the locality of East Patel Nagar. There were just a handful of subscribers to this newspaper and it was not hard to track Murari Lal who stayed alone on the top floor barsati of a double storied house.

Early morning as the newspapers were being delivered Murari Lal came out and fell straight into our trap. The manhunt for the “Veerapan of North India “and the “Master Poacher and Smuggler of wild life from Sariska” thus came to an end with the formal arrest of Sansar Chand (in photograph). He was not only being tracked by the CBI but also by various State Police forces of North India. He was also wanted in Nepal. The revelation that Delhi Police was successful in arresting Sansar Chand made waves internationally and was a feather in the cap of the Delhi Crime Branch. Sansar Chand was of course, handed over to the CBI for further action. He remained in jail for over 10 years, secured bail on medical grounds and succumbed to cancer a couple of years ago.

Sariska Tiger Reserve is once again slowly regaining its old glory.

(The writer was Governor of Uttarakhand and Meghalaya, a member of the UPSC and Commissioner of Police, Delhi from 2004 to 2007.)