Forest dept staff arrests six forhunting nilgais in Farrukhabad

Kanpur: The forest department in Farrukhabad arrested six people in connection with the hunting of two nilgais in Rohilla village under the Mohammadabad police station area late on Saturday. Of them, five accused were residents of Firozabad district. Two dead nilgais were recovered from the spot.A gun, five mobile phones, a knife, a loader and two bikes were recovered from the arrested accused. Cases were registered against all of them under sections of the Wildlife Protection Act.Farrukhabad DFO Rajiv Kumar received information that nilgais were hunted in Rohilla village and the hunters were present at the spot. A team led by forest range officer Anoop Kumar reached the spot and surrounded the hunters. The hunters tried to escape, but the team caught six people.Those arrested included Asif, a resident of Ramgarh in Firozabad; Imamuddin Ali, Abdul and Shahbaz, residents of Kohinoor Road; Aryan, a resident of the Mohammadabad police station area; and Shiv, a resident of Dudauli. According to forest dept, Aryan called and brought all of them for hunting while none of them had any permit.The DFO said, "After hunting two nilgais and skinning them, when they were preparing to hunt a third nilgai, range officer Anoop Kumar conducted a raid along with forest inspectors Tabish Ahmad, Amit Kumar and Rahul Saxena and caught them."The accused were medically examined at Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. The range officer said that the carcasses of the two nilgai were buried in a pit after conducting a post-mortem.Maintaining that the accused had a prior history of conducting such hunting parties, the range officer said, "When the team reached the spot, the hunters hid in a mustard field, after which the team conducted a search operation to catch them."