14 arrested for death of poacher, bid to pass it off as jumbo attack

On Saturday, forest department received information that Jamshid was killed by an elephant.
Devarsholai police arrested 14 people for allegedly killing a poacher and passing it off as an elephant attack.
Devarsholai police arrested 14 people for allegedly killing a poacher and passing it off as an elephant attack.(Express Illustrations)
Updated on
2 min read

NILGIRIS: Devarsholai police arrested 14 people for allegedly killing a poacher and passing it off as an elephant attack. The deceased has been identified as M Jamshid (37), a resident of Division Three of Devarsholai near Gudalur. He used to work on a hotel at Bengaluru and has an arecanut grove here.

On Saturday, forest department received information that Jamshid was killed by an elephant. Since there was no evidence for it, the case was handed over to police. Devarsholai Inspector C. Sivakumar said “Five people including the victim tried to hunt spotted deer in the area on Saturday night.

Jamshid noticed a deer and went inside the tea bushes to hunt it. His friend and the prime suspect Naushad, who was standing away from the bushes shot him inadvertently. Hearing his scream, the others went inside and found Jamshid lying in a pool of blood. He died at 1am on Sunday. To avoid arrest, the others removed the bullet and widened the hole using a knife to make it look like an injury caused by an elephant.”

The inspector added that the others placed Jamshid’s body near his house, which was three km from the place where he was shot dead, and approached villagers to help them. Later, they informed forest department. Forest officials arrived at the spot and found no evidence like tusk injury on his body or elephant foot print in the place and transferred the case to police.

“The postmortem examination report revealed that the injury on Jamshid’s body had turned dark, which happens when nitrate mixes with blood. Further, the bullet pierced a blood vessel in the stomach which resulted in his death. After interrogating with the suspects, we arrested 13 people and remanded them at Gudalur Sub Jail on Tuesday.

Abdul Rahman (59) who possesses country made guns and gunpowder was arrested on Wednesday,” said Sivakumar. “We seized two cars from them. Jamshid often purchased guns from Bengaluru and stored in Rahman’s house,” he added.

Related Stories

No stories found.

X
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com