COIMBATORE: Periyanaickenpalayam forest range officials arrested five people at Neelampathi near Tholampalayam on Wednesday morning for allegedly poaching a wild boar using a country-made explosive (avuttukai). The five were caught when they were sharing the meat. The suspects have been identified as U Krishnasamy V Maruthan, M Rangasamy, M Appayyan and P Velliyangiri and all are hailing from Neelmapathi.
Sources said Krishnasamy planted avuttukai in his neighbour's land where the movement of wild boar is high. Velliyangiri allegedly helped Krishnasamy to make the avuttukai and executed the plan with the help of three others.
A senior forest official said "Krishnasamy and Velliyangiri made Avuttukai themselves after procuring the chemicals. There are no previous wildlife offence cases against them. We will hand them over to the Periyanaciekenpalayam police on Thursday.
We arrested them under Wildlife Protection Act 1972 since wild boar comes under schedule II of the act. We traced the gang based on alert received from informers, whom we cultivated in the area, to prevent such cases. In the last one month, we have been checking forest boundaries using sniffer dogs and our personnel."
This is the second incident involving the use of avattukai in the area. On January 26, Perur police arrested two persons in Karadimadai who were making an avuttukai allegedly to poach wild animals. One of them U Rangasamy (33) suffered injuries on his hand when the bomb exploded.