COIMBATORE: Mettupalayam forest range officials on Sunday arrested eight people, including an Anti Poaching Watcher (APW), for attempting to sell an elephant tusk. The suspects have been identified as M Pradeesh of Kilkotagiri, Y Gunasekaran and K Rajkumar from Sholurmattam, S Nanjundan of Aracode, S Manikandan of Bhavanisagar, P Chinnapandi of Sirumugai, I Subramani of Kotagiri and Y Manoj of Sholurmattam.
“Based on a tip-off from Wildlife Crime Crime Control Bureau, the forest officials caught Pradeesh, Gunasekaran and Chinnapandi, when three of them were trying to sell a tusk to Subramani for `1 lakh. During further investigation, we found that Pradeesh got the tusk from Rajkumar who got it from Nanjundan through Manoj. Moreover, Nanjundan got the tusk from Manikandan who is working as an Anti-Poaching watcher,” said Mettupalayam range officer Joseph Stalin.
“Nanjundan confessed that he had noticed a tusk while patrolling at Thambukkarai Pallam in Thambukkarai reserve forest in 2017 and buried it. We also questioned him about another tusk found with Nanjundan. But he said he only found one tusk which fell on the ground during an infight of elephants. Though our team searched the area to find out whether he had buried another tusk, we did not find any,” he added. The suspects were produced before Mettupalayam court on Monday and remanded to judicial custody.