Dr B Thomas,(Special Correspondent)
I
n a joint operation the Officials of the CID forest Cell with the help of a wildlife volunteers group caught a 25-year-old software engineer red handed while trying to sell a leopard skin,nails and jaws teeth .
The accused has been identified as,BS Puttaraju, native of Chikka Benakanakere in Turuvekere of Tumakuru district working in a IT firm in HSR Layout .
Senior officer told reporters the accused told the police that his friends who went to hunt wild boar in the forest area found the leopard killed by opening several rounds.
The accused later skinned the leopard,took away the nails and jaws teeth and buried the carcass in the forest area and handed it over to Puttaraju to sell and share the money.
The accused had circulated the message on his social media account seeking clients and came under the radar of the wildlife activists who posing as prospective clients approached him and clinched a deal before alerting the CID forest cell.
The accused Puttaraju has now been booked under various sections of wildlife forest act and efforts are on to track down his hunter friends .
The Incident has exposed the callous attitude of the forest department who not only failed to contain illegal hunting in the forest area but also failed to initiate probe to look for the carcass of the leopard buried by the accused .
Sharath Babu,former wildlife warden said that hunting leopard which is schedule 1 animal is illegal with a imprisonment of 5 to 7 years .
The wildlife activists and forest officials should step up creating awareness against illegal hunting which is rampant among the residents of the areas bordering forest region.
