Indore: Just after grand celebrations of World Environment Day, human’s negative impact on environment with reducing green cover was seen when the National Bird of India was found lifeless lying on the road around 9am.
Instead of being concerned about the situation, Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) officials kept passing the blame to each other and had no idea about the burial of the beautiful peahen.
A nursery owner and wild life photographer Jagdish Khandelwal found the female pea fowl (peacock) lifeless on Dhar road in front of Sirpur Lake.
“I was watering plants in my nursery in the morning, when suddenly I noticed the peahen lying on the floor,” he said. As he approached the national bird, Khandelwal found that she was probably struck by high tension current lines.
“The poor peahen lost her life and laid there for quite some time, because as we approached ants had already started feeding themselves on her flesh,” he said.
With the possibility of dog attack to the lifeless national bird due to increased dog menace, Khandelwal stood there protecting the bird with his family members. “IMC van arrived, picked up the peahen, asked us to keep mum and restricted us to take photos,” he said.
However, with support from press members, Khandelwal clicked the photograph. When further enquired from IMC officials, they just passed on the area to each other and refused to take any responsibility for the national bird. There are three blocks in the area: Block No.s 14, 15 and 16.
Block 14 zonal officer Satish Gupta, block 15 zonal officer Nadeem Khan and block 16 zonal officer Manish Pandey did not care to own the accident or have a proper burial of the national bird.
The trio kept passing the area to each other and finally switched off their phones refusing to take any proper action. Forest ranger Khurshid Khan said, “We came to know about the incident later than IMC.”
He sent an official to the spot, but the peahen was removed till then.“I tried to find out from block officers, who told me they had done a post-mortem examination of the bird and buried it somewhere,” Khan said.
Even he did not have proper information, as coordinators did not clear their actions.Zoo incharge Dr Uttam Yadav had no idea about the peahen found lifeless and did not conduct post mortem.
