Four arrested for killing deer in Khammam’s Neeladri Urban Park

Forest officials in Khammam arrested four persons, including a forest watcher and a morning walker, for hunting deer at Neeladri Urban Park under Sathupally Municipality. The accused were remanded in judicial custody till December 16. Cases were booked under the Telangana Forest Act, Wildlife Protection Act, and Arms Act.

Khammam: Forest officials arrested four persons on charges of hunting deer at the Neeladri Urban Park under the limits of Sathupally Municipality in the district. They were produced before the court, after which they were remanded in judicial custody.

Speaking to the media here on Saturday, district forest officer (DFO) Sidharth Vikram Singh said the accused were produced before the Sathupally court, which remanded them till December 16.

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Cases were registered against the accused under provisions of the Telangana Forest Act, 1967, Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and Arms Act, 1959 for killing five deer recently at the park.

An outsourcing forest watcher Gopi Krishna, working at the park, a morning walker Ram Prasad, and two youngsters Bharath and Mecha Raghu were the accused in the case.

The DFO said Gopi Krishna, who knew all the CCTV locations, entry and exit points at the park spread on 150 hectares of land, colluded with the hunters and helped them in killing the deer. To cover up that, he told officials that the deer ran away from the park because of blasting in the nearby SCCL opencast mine.

District Task Force personnel who probed the incident found that the watcher went into hiding soon after the incident. He was said to have changed the CCTV cameras’ alignment prior to the incident. CCTV footage from the recent past showed that Bharath and Raghu had gone into the park on the night of November 24 as well as on an earlier date.

Bharath and Raghu surrendered on Friday and confessed to their crime after which they were arrested and produced before the court. Raghu owns a licensed firearm and would be taken into police custody for further questioning, the DFO said.