An attempt by certain vested interests in Kasaragod district to portray leopards and tigers as the culprits behind sheep and goat disappearance falls flat, as it has been proven that domesticated animals are actually stolen by humans.
Images from CCTV cameras have confirmed that men lure goats with biscuits, and the unsuspecting animals fall prey to this trap.
Brothers Abbas and Abdul Hameed of Kumbala village in Kasaragod were in for a shock as they lost 14 goats which they sent for grazing in the periphery of a neighbouring forest.
The goats disappeared over a period of four months and their complaint to Kumbala police evoked no response other than the routine reply that the matter was being probed.
But the brothers, whose livelihood depended on the income from selling goat milk and slaughterhouses, took it as a challenge and pursued the matter.
Villagers were of the opinion that the goats were flicked away by the leopards from the forest. But there were no pug marks to establish the complicity of the wild animals in the robbery. Abbas and Hameed checked all the video images they could collect from the CCTVs in the region and they came across a boy feeding one of their goats with biscuits and leading it away from the group.
The brothers sent these images to the WhatsApp groups which were picked up by Muneer, a sheep owner from Uppala village. He informed the brothers that a boy resembling the one in the CCTV image had tried to steal his sheep and he overpowered him and handed over to the local police.
The Uppala Police had details of the boy's mother who had submitted her Aadhaar and phone number to get the boy released from the police station. She had told the police that the boy had a soft corner for goats and that's why he was seen feeding the animal with biscuits.
Abbas, Hameed, and Muneer, along with the Uppala Police, surrounded the residence of the boy in Karnataka's Brahmaval village. From there, they arrested the boy, his mother, and Zakka Fullah, a partner in the crime. They also took into custody 70 goats from the residence, all of which were kidnapped using biscuits as bait.
Rafeek, the kingpin of the crime is missing and a hunt is on to nab him.
"Blaming wild animals like leopards and tigers for the disappearance of domesticated animals has become a routine affair in this region. This time we could prove that the wild animals had no role in this crime because there was no evidence linking them to the kidnapping of goats," said Sukumaran Periyachoor, a former principal of Government higher secondary school and a wildlife enthusiast.
But the 14 goats taken away by the boy remain a mystery as none of the animals seized from Brahmaval village belonged to the stable of the brothers. The landscape and the modus operandi remind one of the cowboy films of the 1960s sans the sherif and bounty killers.
