Keonjhar: At least eight poachers have been arrested on charges of bear and boar poaching during raids at two separate places in Telkoi forest area of Keonjhar district.
The forest department has been monitoring the poachers in the Telkoi forest since yesterday.
Acting on specific information that poachers had hunted down a boar in Kuilisuta Forest near Golagadia village, a squad of the wildlife officials conducted a raid and arrested four persons in connection with the case.
The arrested have been identified as Gurucharan Nayak ( 35), Lulu Munda (20) and Suresh Munda ( 17) and Khirod Nayak ( 37).
The officials also seized some boar meats and hand-made bombs from the spot.
In a similar raid, the forest department officials seized a dead body of a bear and arrested four persons, Karthika Sahu (32), Birkishore Sahu (36), Kahu Zhuang (55) and Habil Munda (30), in connection with the case.
A tractor, some electric wires were also seized.
Under the supervision of ACF Ghanshyam Mahant of the district forest department, the raid was led by forest ranger Ranjan Kumar Pani, Telkoi ranger Bhupathi Sethi, Jaitrimayi Patnaik, forest guard Deepak Kumar Rana, Prabhati Das and Shantilata Mundari.