Leopard death: chocolates help officials nab accused

By Our Staff Reporter

KARIMNAGAR, MARCH 9. Strangely, innocuous chocolates helped Forest Department officials, who are probing the killing and skinning of a leopard in the district recently, to nab the main accused in the killing of a leopard in Kondannapalli village of Gangadhara mandal. Sounds strange, but it is true.

Though the Karimnagar west division forest authorities were informed about the death of a leopard in the village on Wednesday morning, actually the wild animal was killed on Sunday itself. After the officials got information, the forest officials rushed to Kondannapalli village which is about 16 km from the district headquarters and recovered the skinned decomposed carcass of the leopard.

On their visit to the village, the officials had instructed the village sarpanch to announce through `tom-tom' of serious action if culprits were from the village. The accused persons, K Narsaiah (65), Rajamallu (46) and Chandraiah (45), who were hiding the skin and claws of the leopard dumped them in the village centre and stated that they had committed the offence of only skinning the leopard and that they had not killed the animal.

However, the forest officials were suspicious over the way the skin and claws was removed from the animal. Immediately, they again rushed to the villagers and spoke to all elders, but none said they had seen the culprit. Later, some officials gave some chocolates to a few children and had an informal chat. The children told the officials that the leopard was trapped and killed by Narsaiah and later dumped in the countour trenches near the hillocks.

Based on the clue, on further interrogation, the main accused, K Narsaiah, a poacher who also sells the meat of wild animals to the villagers, confessed to the crime of trapping the wild animal through a snare. However, he stated that he used the snare to trap rabbits and mongoose only and accidently the leopard had fallen prey. He alongwith two others were sent for judicial custody.

Talking to newsmen here on Friday, the Warangal Conservator of Forests, Mr P Raghuveer, said that Narsaiah, a professional poacher, was appointed by the villagers to water their crops in the forests during the nights. While watering the crop, he noticed some mongoose and other wild animals moving in the forests. As he was a professional poacher, he used the snare to trap the animals on Sunday.

When he went into the forests, he found a leopard trapped in his snare. He immediately scared and later dragged the animal near the hillocks and dumped it in the countour trenches on Monday. When no one noticed, he alongwith Rajamallu and Chandraiah went to the spot, skinned the animal and removed the claws on Tuesday. The Forest Department officials were informed about the death of the animal on Wednesday. Within two days they arrested the main accused. The DFO (west), Mr Y Madhusudhan Reddy, said that they had recovered eight snares from the forests which were used to trap the animals.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : Top PWG leaders injured in exchange of fire
Next     : 1,400 new bars may come up in State