Tiger poaching case:Rajendra Kerkar faces social boycott in Keri

Tiger poaching case:Rajendra Kerkar faces social boycott in Keri
Preetu Nair, TNN
KERI: The irony couldn’t have been more stark. Outside the state, he is being awarded for his efforts in environment conservation.

In his own village, Rajendra Kerkar faces a social boycott. All because Kerkar—who with his street play ‘Do not kill the tiger’ created awareness in his village of Keri to preserve the country’s fast diminishing big cat population—exposed the killing of a tiger in the same village in TOI’s edition of April 13.

“From the time I exposed the tiger killing, the Majik community in Keri has been upset. They are constantly trying to provoke the rest of the village against me to ensure that I am socially and culturally boycotted in the village. I have also been getting threatening calls,” said Kerkar.

Until now, the environmental movement in Keri has been led by Kerkar, who was instrumental in getting the Mhadei area notified as a wildlife sanctuary. Now the very effort has made him a villain in the eyes of the 500-odd members of the Majik community, living close to the Mhadei wildlife sanctuary.

Kerkar reveals that his woes started from the time he wrote in TOI and subsequently to forest officials on April 15 alleging that a tiger had been killed in Keri near the Mhadei wildlife sanctuary in February 2009.

Immediately after this, on the night of April 18, Kerkar was called to a mello(meet) at Keri’s Kelbai temple and told that he had committed a grave crime by exposing the tiger’s killing.

28 August, 2009, The Times of India, Goa edition