Noted environment activist Ajey Dubey suspected that the radio collar fitted with the slain tigress, carcass of which was found buried in the Chhindwara south forest division under the STR on March 27, might have been hacked or tampered with by the poachers to misguide the monitoring authorities about its locations.

"This needs to be probed. It is a grave matter. I have written to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) to conduct an investigation into the aspect", Mr. Dubey said.

A search operation was launched to locate the four-year-old female tiger in the STR when the authorities failed to spot its location after getting signal drops several times.

The STR authorities had contacted the World-Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature to take up the matter with it.

According to the STR sources, the WWF had informed that the occasional signal drops were caused by the current Gulf war.

The search team later found the carcass of the tigress buried in the Chhindwara south forest division on March 27.

"This incident is not merely a case of poaching but a glaring example of monitoring failure", Mr. Dubey said in his letter to the NTCA.

He said that the female tiger was fitted with a functional radio collar.

'Reportedly, the signal was lost or dropped at least two days before the carcass was discovered. More alarmingly, the tigress was said to have been stationary since March three. How did the monitoring team fail to sound an alarm for 23 days despite no movement being recorded?", he wondered.

He claimed that an attempt to hack a tiger's radio collar was documented within this STR in 2013.

Given the 23-day 'silence' or lack of movement alerts in the current case, it is imperative to investigate whether the radio collar signals were intercepted or 'spoofed' to show a false status to the monitoring station, he said.