JAYASHANKAR BHUPALPALLY/HYDERABAD:A gang of five poachers, who killed two spotted deer and were moving in a car with the carcasses of the animals, slipped away from the hands of the forest department officials. The reason: Sources said the poachers were armed while the forest staff, who patrol deep forests and deal with smugglers and poachers, are not.
The escape of the poachers, who killed a male and a female spotted deer and allegedly came from Hyderabad to Sooraram forest areas under Mahadevpur forest range on Sunday night, exposes the risk at which the forest staff work. Forest officials were once given firearms to deal with poachers and smugglers but were later told to deposit their weapons with the police fearing that the weapons may be snatched away by Maoists.
After the left-wing extremism came down, the forest department sent a proposal to the government for providing arms to the forest staff. “The proposal for arming our personnel in forests has been pending. We are pursuing the matter. It is still in the proposal stage,” PK Jha, principal chief conservator of forest, Telangana told Express.
With regard to Sunday night’s incident, sources said that on a tip off that poachers killed two deer and were transporting the carcasses in a car to Hyderabad, Mahadevpur forest range officer (FRO) B Ramesh, along with Sooraram forest officials, rushed to forest area. “The forest staff chased and intercepted the vehicle in Ambatpalli forest,” the sources said, adding that the poachers, in a bid to escape, damaged the vehicle of the forest staff.
The forest staff reportedly tried to nab the five-member gang but since it was armed, the forest personnel did not dare to challenge the poachers, it is learnt.
Mahadevpur forest officials seized the car and the carcasses of the deer. Forest officials found a bullet stuck in one of the deer, and a towel and a knife in the car.
They found an Aadhaar card in the name of Faisal Mohammed Khan of Hyderabad. A case has been registered against Faisal Mohammad Khan and four others under the Wildlife Protection Act-1972 and Andhra Pradesh Forest Act,1967 under section 29 and 44.