A Forest department team has arrested three persons on the charge of poisoning seven peafowls at Uchani village near Keeranur in Pudukkottai district.
Acting on a tip off, a team visited a farm at the village on April 25 where they found some feathers and legs of birds strewn around. The decomposed carcass of a peahen was found in a bush nearby.
The team, thereafter, launched a search for the farm owner and workers. They traced the workers on April 26 and conducted detailed enquiries. The three farm workers reportedly confessed to having poisoned the seven peafowls, allegedly on the instruction of the farm owner. The owner had ordered the killing of the birds to prevent them from destroying his crops.
The poison was mixed with paddy and groundnuts and fed to the birds, said a senior Forest official here. The carcasses of the rest of the birds could not be found. The could have been taken away by mongrels, officials said.
The carcass of the peahen was sent to a forensic lab to find out what poison was used. Samples have been sent for tests to check if the bird had any disease.
The farm owner, P. Dhanapal, is a retired government official and is absconding. The team is on the lookout for him.
The three workers, M. Arumugam, 62, P. Palanivel, 50, and P. Rajamani, 65, were remanded in judicial custody on Monday and a case booked against them under Section 9 of the Wild Life Protection Act, 1972.
The Forest authorities have asked field-level officials to keep a watch against illegal activities taking place inside and outside the reserve forest areas taking advantage of the lockdown period.
