Two camera traps in reserve forest near Anaikatti go missing

Coimbatore: The forest department on Sunday denied the news that one of the camera traps in the reserve forest near Anaikatti had captured the images of armed men moving in the forest and said both the camera traps in the locality had gone missing three days ago and they had lodged a complaint with the Thadagam police in this regard as well.
T K Ashok Kumar, district forest officer, said the camera traps were fixed to trees more than a month ago for tiger census. “An investigation is going on from our side to find the people who stole the cameras. We had lodged a complaint with the Thadagam police two days ago and they had issued a community service registrar to us.”
He said only two camera traps were installed in the locality. “There was a media report that a camera trap had captured the images of armed men moving in the forest. It is a misleading news. Both the cameras are missing from the reserve forest and how can we collect footage from one of them?”
The officer said they had asked the forest department frontline staff to check visuals captured on the cameras in the neighbourhood for any lead.
The naxalite special division and the special task force police, who were conducting routine combing operations on the Tamil Nadu-Kerala border forest areas to prevent infiltration of Maoists, also confirmed that they hadn’t received any information about the armed men in the reserve forest near Anaikatti.