Pregnant forest guard, hubby killed in Gujarat

RAJKOT: A woman forest beat guard, who was pregnant, and her husband, were found mysteriously murdered in the thick forest area of Barda wildlife sanctuary in Porbandar district, on Monday.
The bodies of Hetal Solanki, who was deputed in Godhana beat, her husband Kirti (32), and a daily wager Naga Agath (42), were found on the rocks of a waterfall near Sarmaniya Vav in the forest. Kirti was a teacher in Ratdi village primary school near Porbandar.
The couple and the daily wager had gone missing on August 15 and her car was found in a village where the hilly forest area begins. Severe injury marks inflicted by some sharp weapon were found on the bodies, but the motive of the murder is still being investigated.
This is the first instance of a woman forest beat guard being murdered in Gujarat. Hetal had passed out of the Gujarat Forest Rangers College in Rajpipla in 2017. She was deputed in this beat about a month-and-a-half ago.
On August 15, Kirti’s father Govind, who lives in Patdi in Surendranagar district, kept trying their mobile phones, but couldn’t get through them. Worried, he informed the local Bagvadar police station. On August 16, teams of Ranavav and Kutiyana police station launched a massive search operation that involved 200 cops and drones too.
Senior police officials said that Hetal had gone into the forest area as part of her duty as beat guards have no fixed working hours. However, the reason for taking along her husband is not known yet.
The bodies were from nearly 3 km far from where their car was found and all bodies were lying at a distance of around half a km from each other. They were also slightly decomposed.
Talking to TOI, Porbandar superintendent of police (SP), Ravi Saini, said “There are head injuries on all the three bodies. It’s difficult to say how deep the wounds are but we have called forensic experts for postmortem.”
“We are trying to ascertain if multiple weapons were used to know if the number of people involved in this murder.”
According to sources, Barda is a den of illicit country-made liquor brewing and illegal tree chopping too. Police are interrogating several people including those working for the forest department and some members of the notorious Dafer gang, to get more clues.
Chief conservator of forest, wildlife circle, DT Vasavada told TOI: “We are also cooperating with the police and strictest action will be taken if anyone from the forest department is found involved.”