MYSURU:  The recent case of elephant poaching by a gang in the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary has put forest officials on high alert. The highly decomposed body of an elephant was found recently and officials said poachers might have killed the jumbo 15-20 days ago.The authorities who had set up anti-poaching camps in the forest with wireless sets and stepped up patrolling to check forest fires, have now started investigating the case.

Sources said authorities in both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have started cornering habitual and professional poachers.Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary officials have filed a police complaint so that the cops can also take up an investigation and check call details of the suspects as the carcass found in Kothanur range did not leave much evidence for them.

Ruling out the involvement of small players in the crime, the officials are certain that it is done by professionals as they have used chemicals. The terrain where the crime was carried out and the was the tusks were hacked out have proved that it to be an work of an organised gang of poachers that is suspected to have come from a neighbouring state or other places.

Sources said they have also sent footage of the crime spot to Kerala forest officials to help them gather information and keep a vigil on organised poachers in that state.Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary Conservator Ramesh said the poaching has disrupted the work of forest personnel on duty. He said they have stepped up combing operation and will do their best to arrest the poachers. “We have sought the help of forest personnel in Tamil Nadu,” he added.

Meanwhile, M M Hills Forest Conservator Edukondalu said they stepped up intelligence gathering on habitual offenders in both the sanctuaries and also across the border. He said call details from mobile towers will help zero in on the poachers.

Since the forest personnel are more focused on bandobust during festivals held in the forest and also to save the forest from accidental fires, the poachers would have used it as an opportunity to get into the forest to commit the crime, he said.Vinayaka, a forest official, said they are gathering information from local villages and shepherds to know whether there was any suspicious movement of outsiders or poachers in the area recently.Sources said Tamil Nadu forest officials were also alerted and have shared the video of the carcass of the elephant so that they can also give inputs to nab the culprits.