VIJAYAPURA: Flouting a video of hunting on a social media account, landed a youth of Vijayapura into jail. The accused had hunted down a porcupine and shared a video of skinning it, on his account on TikTok which later went viral.
The local forest officials arrested the accused Manjunath C Badiger (22), a resident of Honnalli village of Sindagi taluk and driver by profession and produced him before the court. The forest officials have set up teams to nab the remaining three members that were seen in the video.
On Sunday, the four youths found a porcupine in the outskirts of Honnalli village and killed it. The incident came to light after one of the members of the gang named as Majunath Badiger posted a video on TikTok.
However, it first came to the notice of the forest officials of the Kalburagi district. While they were investigating, it was revealed that the incident happened in the jurisdiction of Vijayapura district. Without any delay, the forest officials of Kalaburagi alerted the district headquarters Vijayapura.
Acting on the alert, the forest officials rushed to the village and succeeded in arresting one of the members of the gang. In primary investigation, the forest officials collected the information from the accused Manjunath that there were another three members at the site, while they hunted and killed the endangered porcupine.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, Basangouda Biradar, Ranger from Sindagi said, " As soon as the forest officials from Kalaburagi alerted we rushed to the village. At present we have taken one person in the video into custody and investigation is underway. The remaining three accused belong to the same village and one of them works in village panchayat as a waterman. Once we arrest all the members we will take them to the hunting site".
“We have booked the case under Wild Life Protection Act, 1972. In this region we can find porcupine in few numbers and it is an endangered wild animal. These are nocturnal creatures and questioning will be done to know how the group of boys managed to catch the animal,” stated RFO Biradar.