Roads of IOB Colony at the foothills of Maruthamalai near Coimbatore had vehicles on the move and residents were yet to hit the beds on the night of July 4, 2021, when they heard a gunshot. Four men, who came in a car, had just shot a wild boar, one of the hundreds that roam in the locality at night.
In the consecutive searches, the Forest Department apprehended the four men, including B. Ashok Kumar, a sharp shooter, who had been arrested thrice in the past for hunting wild animals for meat.
In another incident this year, field workers arrested two of a group of five poachers from Salem who came to Mettupalayam – Sathyamangalam Road at Sirumugai in Coimbatore district in the early hours of February 28 to hunt wild animals that cross the road to enter villages for crop raiding. They carried two country-made rifles and live rounds.
