COIMBATORE: Officials of the Coimbatore Forest Department arrested 11 persons for poaching and selling deer meat on Wednesday.

Acting on information, the Forest Department staff searched a house of one Murugan (49), at Thuvaipathy village in Anaikatty and seized cooked meat of deer.

Inquiries with him revealed that Murugan sold deer meat to Duraisamy (65), Karupparayan (39), Jayakumar (31) and Jaganathan (39), all hailing from different areas in Anaikatty.

The officials also seized the head of a deer, its horn, sickle and net used to trap the animal.

The Forest Department imposed a penalty of Rs 25,000 on Murugan and Rs 20,000 on others.

In another incident, the forest staff caught red handed Rangasamy (65) from Moongilpallam area selling deer meat at his house. Inquiries revealed that he had poached deer with his dogs. He confessed to have sold the meat to Babu (40), Subramani (45), Ramu (30), Sivadas (37) and Kandasamy (40).

Officials seized a huge quantity of meat and slapped them with a penalty for the offence.

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