TIRUNELVELI
Puliyarai police have arrested five persons for allegedly carrying country bombs and a country-made rifle for hunting wild boars on the Western Ghats.
The police said they received information a couple of days ago that a country-made rifle had been kept in a private farm near Esakkiamman Temple close to Kurangunattu Odai on Shencottai–Puliyarai Road. When the police seized the weapon and conducted an investigation, they came to know that a group of poachers, who used to enter the reserve forest areas illegally, were hunting down deer and wild boars.
They were also cutting down teak and other costly woods in the reserve forest areas and selling the logs illegally to private sawmills.
Puliyarai police registered a case in connection with the seizure of the country-made rifle from the private farm. Meanwhile, a police patrol team noticed some people moving around in a suspicious manner in the reserve forest area close to Puliyarai on Tuesday evening and picked them up for interrogation.
Those picked up – P. Mustafa alias Mohamed Mustafa (47) of Shencottai, V. Karuppasamy (30) and S. Karuppasamy (37) of Angan Colony, Suresh (24) of Therkkumedu and Thangadurai of Karkudi – told the police that they were going to hunt wild boars in the reserve forest. The police patrol team seized a country-made single barrel rifle and five country bombs from them.
The police arrested them under Section 25 (1) (B) of the Arms Act and Section 5 of the Explosive Substances Act. Later, they were remanded in judicial custody.