2 weeks Ago By P Oppili
Chennai: A day after a report in TOI on tusks that were stolen from the strong room of Vandalur zoo and how authorities were yet to complete inventory of the valuables, authorities suspended range officer Hari. Both the store department and the room in which the wildlife trophies were stored were under his control. Zoo director Ashish Kumar Srivastava denied that one tonne of ivory had gone missing from the zoo.
Disputing the TOI report that inventorisation of valuables were yet to be completed, the officer said the enumeration of the stock was completed on Sept 15 and a report was submitted on Sept 17. However, when TOI questioned the zoo director about quantity of ivory that had been kept in the stores and the quantity that was missing, he refused to divulge any details. When asked whether the zoo authorities had filed a complaint with the local police soon after the ivory was stolen from the zoo, the director refused to comment.
Denying that the ivory stock had been kept in a poorly secured area, the director said: "It was kept in a fully secured room in the feed store, which has a four-lock system, and 24/7 monitoring of the room is done both physically as well as through CCTV camera." As for the head of the investigation team P Manikanda Prabhu, assistant director, going on a long leave, the officer said he had applied for leave in advance for two weeks and that it had been sanctioned..
