Even as the Maharashtra Forest Department's action of eliminating tigress T1 in Pandharkawda is being criticised, Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar has hit back at Union Minister Maneka Gandhi, saying her allegations lacked information. While he also said the decision (of killing T1) was not his or the department's, but the National Tiger Conservation Authority's, a Mumbai-based NGO has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking a CBI probe into the killing.

Mungantiwar said Maneka could have called him before levelling the allegations. "She (Maneka) could have spent 50 paise to make a call to me. I would have given her all information on the killing of tigers – not only this but the others which were hunted down when I was not a minister," he said.