Nine persons were arrested for poaching wild animals in Kowthimalai reserve forest (RF) in Tiruvannamalai on Friday.
Forest officials said a countrymade gun, explosives, meat, three two-wheelers, nets, torch lights and batteries were seized from them. It was during a routine patrol in the forest, a team of forest officials found a group of men, mostly in their early 20s, inside the reserve forest, a prohibited area, at around 1.30 a.m. on Friday.
Once they saw the forest team on a jeep, they tried to escape on their two-wheelers, leaving behind their things. However, the team divided into small groups and rounded the suspects in the forest. “They have been poaching in the area regularly as they had come prepared with all basic things needed to hunt and cook the meat in the forest. Unlike earlier, the team on Friday was a big group,” N. Srinivasan, Forest Range Officer, Tiruvannamalai range, told The Hindu. Initial inquiries revealed that K. Annamalai, 33, S. Pachaiappan, 27, K. Harikrishnan, 20, M. Ranjith, 20, M. Sudhakar, 38, S. Dakshinamurthy, 22, S. Mohanraj, 20, and S. Annamalai, 29, were involved in the crime. All of them belong to Palliyapattu and Mulakadu villages that are located in the fringes of the reserve forest. They procured the countrymade gun from neighbouring Kerala through contacts for hunting of small wild animals. Cases have been filed against them.
