• Snares, jaw traps, goods vehicle seized; Tiger and leopard skin recovered
• Accused had consumed leopard meat after hunting it down

Mysore/Mysuru: The Mysuru Forest Mobile Squad personnel have arrested four persons for poaching a tiger and leopard and the Forest officials have recovered the skins of the big wild cats besides seizing snares, jaw traps and a goods vehicle from them.

Shockingly, the accused, after poaching the leopard, had consumed the meat. It is learnt that the arrested are notorious poachers and experts in hunting wild animals.

The arrested are Aruna, Nanjunda and Ravi of Ambedkar Nagar at Nellurpalya in Hunsur and Ramesh, a tribal from Kutteri Hadi near Bhimanahalli.

Accused Ramesh had fixed a snare near the elephant trench at Veeranahosahalli Range of Nagarahole Reserve Forest about six months ago and a well built tiger was caught in the snare the next day and had died. Ramesh, who saw the dead tiger, informed Ravi and sought his help. The duo then transported the dead tiger in the goods vehicle to Ambedkar Nagar, where another accused Nanjunda skinned the tiger and later hid the skin in another accused Aruna’s house.

They then transported the remains of the tiger in the same goods vehicle and dumped the same in Lakshmanatheertha River. As COVID lockdown restrictions were in force, movement of people and vehicles were scanty and only goods vehicles were allowed to transport essential commodities, the accused making use of the opportunity continued the crime, according to Forest officials.

During interrogation, the accused had made a shocking revelation that they had poached a leopard about a year back at Hunusekatte, near Tibetan Colony in Hunsur taluk, using a jaw trap. After clubbing the leopard to death, the accused had brought the dead leopard to the house, skinned the animal and consumed its meat.

Acting on a tip off that tiger and leopard skins were stored in the house of accused Aruna, the Forest officials, after confirming the same, had gone to the house of Aruna in the guise of buyers.

After looking at the skins and confirming them to be original ones, the Forest Staff raided the place and arrested all the accused.

Mysuru Forest Mobile Squad Deputy Conservator of Forests (DCF) A.T. Poovaiah, Range Forest Officer (RFO) Vivek, Deputy Range Forest Officers (DRFOs) Lakshmish, Nagaraj, Pramod, Sundar, Vinod, Sneha and Meghana, Forest Guards Channabasappa, Virupaksha, Sharanappa, Govinda, Kotresh and Ravikumar and Drivers Madhu and Puttaswamy, took part in the nabbing and seizing operation.