Elephant smuggled from Nepal, trail points to NGO in leopard poaching probe - The Indian Express
First, it was alleged leopard poaching. Now, it is the alleged purchase of an elephant from Nepal.
The NGO Wildlife SOS, whose two functionaries are in the custody of Madhya Pradesh’s Forest department in a leopard poaching case with its CEO Kartick Satyanarayan due to join the probe, is also allegedly linked to a case of live elephant trade from four years ago, Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) records show.
In March 2022, the WCCB arrested three men with 30 kg of ivory in Jaipur. One of the accused told investigators that a “Mathura resident Suraj Pal”, who is “associated with an Agra NGO”, had bought a female elephant smuggled from Nepal, it is learnt. The mobile phone of another accused contained chats with a contact saved as “SOS.Baigo.Agra” — the chats referred to “Suraj Pal’s elephant”, and the contact wrote he had kept “Kartick sir” informed, records show.
What’s missing in the WCCB records is this: the number tagged as “SOS.Baigo.Agra” belongs to Baiju Raj, director of conservation at Wildlife SOS, which operates bear and elephant rescue facilities in Agra and Mathura, where Suraj Pal has worked as an elephant keeper since 2011, The Indian Express has found.
Asked about the reference to “Kartick sir” in the chat, Satyanarayan told The Indian Express: “I have no knowledge of the purported chat records. Therefore, I am unable to verify, assess, or comment on the matter.” When contacted, Baiju Raj denied knowledge of the chat.
On Baiju Raj’s chat records concerning “Suraj Pal’s elephant,” Satyanarayan said: “This appears to be a concocted narrative being circulated by individuals with mischievous and personal vendetta, having vested interests.”
Asked whether the interrogation lead was followed up, Devendra Singh Rathore, the case officer who was then a WCCB inspector, declined to comment. WCCB did not respond to requests from The Indian Express for comment. A former WCCB official told this newspaper that the agency was perhaps unaware Pal worked for Wildlife SOS and “inadvertently gave up on leads that could lead to a case of cross-border smuggling”.
It was on March 13, 2022, that a WCCB team arrested UP Police sub-inspector Nazuddin Khan, his son Gulam Khan and accomplice Nashir Ali with approximately 30 kg of ivory and a licensed revolver in Jaipur.
According to case records, the chats referring to “Suraj Pal’s elephant” were found on Nazuddin Khan’s phone. The other accused, Ali, told investigators that he had smuggled a 35-40-year-old female elephant through the Hathiheva (Nepal) border to Kakrawa in UP’s Kushinagar during the first Covid lockdown in 2020.
According to Ali’s interrogation records, the elephant belonged to Ramesh Khatola, a hotel owner in Nepal’s Sauraha, who sold her to Dinanath Verma in Kushinagar for Rs 40 lakh. Verma, in turn, sold the elephant to Suraj Pal for Rs 70 lakh, Ali told investigators.
Khan, Ali and the third accused are out on bail, with the trial pending.
Asked about the alleged chat records involving Khan, Baiju Raj said: “I am not aware of Nazuddin Khan. I have no knowledge of the purported chat records you are referring to.”
In an email, Wildlife SOS said: “Suraj Pal was associated with us for a short period up to 2016 when his employment was terminated. Therefore, Wildlife SOS is unable to comment on any activities attributed to him after his departure from the organisation.”
The Wildlife SOS website has a webpage, dated August 21, 2025, featuring the NGO’s elephant keeper Suraj Pal.
Last month, the Madhya Pradesh State Tiger Strike Force (STSF) arrested two Wildlife SOS employees — Bhagwan Singh alias Salim, and his accomplice Wasim — for their alleged involvement in poaching 10 leopards in the Shivpuri-Morena landscape. Satyanarayan has so far failed to appear before investigators on three occasions and sought protection from arrest. On September 21, the Supreme Court granted Satyanarayan interim protection and asked him to appear before the investigators on September 28.
Meanwhile, at least three wildlife crime investigators told this newspaper that they have long raised questions over the NGO’s rescue and anti-poaching methods. “We had strong circumstantial evidence on a few occasions, but never a smoking gun,” a senior UP forest officer told The Indian Express.
According to them, investigative agencies were aware of allegations that poachers were collecting bear cubs from the wild on behalf of Wildlife SOS since at least 2007.
“We got interested because on multiple occasions bear cubs were found abandoned in hotel rooms. No arrest would be made because no handler would be around,” a former senior investigator with a central agency said. He said leads were pursued in Odisha, Jharkhand and pockets along the Nepal border before the “trails dried up”.
Last month’s arrest of Bhagwan Singh, a former Delhi Police officer who worked for Wildlife SOS, and his colleague Wasim in the leopard poaching case by the MP Forest department has revived questions over the seizure of a tiger skin, leopard skin and tiger skeleton in TN’s Nilgiris in 2023. At the time, Wildlife SOS had claimed credit for assisting the seizure and the subsequent sentencing of the poachers, with sources in the TN Forest department saying that Singh and Wasim were allegedly present in the Sathyamangalam forest area when the seizure and arrests took place.
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