All-night search, a panicked guard: What led to deaths of 3 men in Karnataka forest

Amid a political controversy and rival narratives over whether the men were poachers or farmers looking for cattle, Karnataka Chief Minister D K Shivakumar ordered a magisterial inquiry.

According to government sources familiar with the investigation, a post-mortem has indicated that the fatal bullets were fired from a “slide action gun” (also known as a pump shotgun) at a “near range” to the victims, but not point blank.

Karnataka Forest Minister Ramalinga Reddy stated in the Karnataka legislature on August 17 that bullets were fired in the forest encounter with the alleged poachers from a forest department shotgun with the number R721035—issued to a forest guard identified as Shivraj S—after a forest patrol group chanced upon the suspects.

“There was firing from only one gun of the forest staff,” Mariswamy, Assistant Conservator of Forests in the Hanur wildlife division, said.

Wounds indicate firing from close range, spark row

The nature of the wounds on the victims indicates firing from a shotgun from a near distance, sources familiar with investigations of gunshot cases said.

In the case of wounds from shotguns fired from a long distance, there would be multiple perforations on the body caused by small pellets bursting from the cartridge and piercing the body. Close-contact firing will leave burn and gas marks along with a large entry wound for the pellets and cartridge.

In the case of intermediate range firing of shotguns—as suspected in the Hanur shootings—a single large hole is seen for entry of pellets without traces of burn marks and gases, sources said.

The analysis of photographs of the bodies of the three victims indicates that one victim has a large single entry wound on the left side of his neck, a second victim has similar wounds on his thigh and chest, and the third victim has a large bullet wound on the right side of his ribs.

Questions have been raised by several family members of the victims on the nature of the wounds, suggesting that the men were shot at a very close range after capture.

Karnataka BJP Leader of Opposition R Ashok has asked: “Why were they shot in the chest?”

“We have seen the wounds. It looks like firing at a close range,” said Chinnappan, a relative of one of the victims after the deaths on August 15.

While post-mortem reports are indicative of the approximate range of firing that caused wounds, they would have to be corroborated with findings of ballistics and crime scene forensic teams for exact firing distances, sources said.

What led to the incident?

According to the Karnataka forest department and forest officers who served in the Hanur range for many years and were briefed on what happened, the Hanur incident was an accident.

“There was a flash of gunfire when the search team approached the Karadikalu (Bear Rock) in the early hours of Saturday. The poachers were at a higher altitude on the rocks and the forest staff were below. The forest staff fired three rounds from a slide-action gun,” Forest Minister Ramalinga Reddy said.

“At the time of the incident, the hunters were at a higher point than the department staff at the Karadikalu rocks. Since the hunters were not clearly visible to the department staff, they were shot in the upper part of the waist when the staff retaliated. The staff did not take the action with any malicious intent,” he added.

“They were conducting searches, and when they chanced upon the persons who had come with the intent of poaching, both groups became alert. They have fired, and we have fired,” Mariswamy said.

“A warning was issued, but they did not heed. The suspects fired, but it was a misfire and there was a flash. At this time, our people have fired immediately; if they had not fired, our staff would be victims,” Mariswamy further claimed.

A night-long search operation

Around 8 pm on August 14, a group of 10-15 personnel, including guards, foresters, and Anti-Poaching Camp watchers, gathered. Two teams were formed to search the Hanur forest for ‘poachers’. (Representational image)

According to sources who have worked in the Hanur forest region and visited the Hanur division to interact with forest staff after the August 15 incident, the firing was the culmination of an entire night’s search for poachers in the forest.

After the forest department received “actionable intelligence” of poachers entering the forest around 8 pm on August 14, a group of 10-15 personnel, including guards, foresters, and Anti-Poaching Camp watchers, gathered. Two teams were formed to search the forests for the poachers.

“Shortly after entering the forest, one team encountered the first batch of poachers. Shots were fired at a distance, and the poachers retreated and fled. Thinking the intruders had fled, the forest staff regrouped on a strategic ridge. While standing on that ridge, they heard gunshots in the valley below. This confirmed to the staff that a second gang was active down in the valley,” a source familiar with the August 14 operation said.

A few forest staff stayed behind at the ridge, and a few proceeded towards the area where the gunshots were heard, led by a forest guard. Since using flashlights would alert the poachers, the forest staff reportedly waited “along the main exit trail to lay an ambush on the exit route”.

The alleged poachers, however, did not leave the forest and instead prepared their poached game and rested at the rocky outcrop called Karadikalu where mobile network signals are available. The rock also provided long-distance visibility for flashlight beams of forest searchers.

“They were resting on the rock. Around 5 am, seeing that no one had emerged from the trail, our staff decided to head back toward where the initial gunshots were heard. As they approached Karadikalu, our staff had no idea the poachers were resting right above them on the rock formation,” a source said.

“As our staff approached, one of the poachers—the one who fled and later got admitted to the hospital—spotted our men and immediately fired his weapon at them,” the source said.

Seeing the flash of gunfire, the forest guard at the front of the forest search party let fly a burst of gunfire, sources said. “The guard who was carrying a slide-action gun loaded with cartridges (minimum 6 rounds at a time) reacted under intense panic from the poacher’s sudden close-range gunfire,” a source said. “He forcefully pulled the trigger hard and because he held the trigger down tightly the weapon continuously discharged all its loaded rounds in rapid succession,” the source added.

The bullets sprayed around the area where the alleged poachers were resting and hit three of them above the waist, causing fatal “near range” injuries, sources said. “The firing from lower elevation at an upward angle, when the poachers jumped up on the rock to flee, resulted in the bullet spray striking the upper bodies,” the source said.

“If the poacher had not opened fire first, our staff would not even have noticed them up there. So when shot at, our guard held down the trigger in panic. Only one department weapon was fired from our side,” the source added.

In a video statement from the hospital, Mahima Das, who has a prior record for violation of forest and wildlife laws, broadly corroborated the forest department version without admitting that any shots were fired by the alleged poachers.

“At around 5.30 or 5.45 am, they came upon us. I got scared when they fired, so I ran away. I got down (from the rock) and ran away. After five minutes, there was no sound. I was tired, unwell and had a stomach ache, so I reached home and got myself admitted to a hospital,” he said.

In her complaint to the Hanur police, Lourde Mary has quoted Mahima Das as saying that the four men who had entered the forest “to look for their lost cattle” were sleeping on the rocks located around 4 km from their homes when he heard a sound and woke up while the others remained asleep.

“The forest staff had arrived at the location where we were sleeping. When they fired shots, I slipped to the side of the rocks and ran away. The other three who were still on the rocks were shot by the forest staff,” her complaint says, citing Das.

“They came with the intent of poaching and were equipped with all the items required for hunting. They ventured deep into the forest up to a distance of 8 km. What is the need for venturing so deep with two country-made weapons if they were searching for lost cattle?” Mariswamy said.

The forest authorities have claimed the finding of 34 kg of deer meat poached by the four men at a small distance from where they were shot. “Around 75 metres from the place where they were found, two bags of deer meat were found. It was the meat of the animal they hunted in the night,” he added.

Once Veerapan’s stronghold, poachers a menace

Since Veerappan’s death, dozens of smaller groups of poachers have emerged from the villages surrounding the forests—inhabited primarily by migrants from Tamil Nadu.

In the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, the Hanur sub-division spanning 156 km in length and 10 km in width is one of the largest forest sub-divisions in Karnataka. The forest range is notorious for the presence of poachers—the most infamous being the forest brigand Veerappan, who dominated the region from the 1990s till 2004, when he was shot dead by the Tamil Nadu Police Special Task Force (STF).

Since Veerappan’s death, dozens of smaller groups of poachers have emerged from the villages surrounding the forests—inhabited primarily by migrants from Tamil Nadu who moved into the region after the Mettur dam built on the Cauvery river inundated villages 100 years ago, say Karnataka forest staff.

According to official court records for the Kollegal taluk, where the Hanur forest is located, there have been over 300 cases registered under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, in the last 10 years in the region—involving primarily Tamil Christians from border villages. There are 107 cases under trial at present.

“When Veerappan was present in this region, there weren’t many forest cases. The cases were focused on Veerappan, the STF was present in the forest, and locals would not venture to hunt in the forest. Now, the situation has changed, and there has been an exponential rise in forest cases,” said S Shashi Bimba, an advocate who has represented several accused from the forest villages in poaching and forest cases.

“There are people who come from the Anekal region near Bengaluru to hunt over here. They come from Tamil Nadu as well to hunt. Since the Cauvery river flows in this forest region, people come from other parts in boats for hunts at night,” he said.

“The forest department does not have the requisite amount of staff. They are understaffed in comparison to the rise in wildlife cases. In the interior forest, nothing is visible at night. When there is fear that poachers will fire at the guards, shots are fired by the guards. There are a lot of habitual forest offenders in the region,” Bimba added.

On June 1 this year, a Kollegal court acquitted three poachers in a case of hunting a baby sambar in 2016 in the forest for lack of strong evidence. The 2016 case was registered after forest staff on patrolling duty at night near the Karadikalu region noticed a torch light around 2.30 am and saw three persons running away. The forest staff found the dead body of a “baby female sambar” at the spot.

The forest probe revealed that John Peter, Gnanaprakash and Arogyaswamy were the local poachers involved in hunting the sambar. John Peter incidentally hailed from the same village, Jaganathadoddi, as John Rose Peter, one of the three victims in the August 15 firing.

The Kollegal court acquitted the alleged poachers by pointing out that none of the accused was arrested by the forest department from the spot where the poached meat was found.

“When there is no proper evidence, we can obtain acquittals in these cases. There will usually be no eyewitnesses, and the recovery by the forest authorities cannot be proven,” Bimba said.

An analytical study of all forest offence cases registered over the last 10 years in the region by N H Ankaraju, a former Hanur assistant conservator for forests who served over seven years in the region, revealed that “99 per cent of the booked cases were against the same local Tamil Christian poachers”.

“The cases we actually managed to register represent barely 5 per cent to 10 per cent of actual poaching. Nearly 90 per cent goes unnoticed, or people escape. We only catch them when we chance upon them or receive specific intelligence. It is their business—they survive by eating and selling wild meat,” he added.

One of the reasons why the forest department struggles to control poaching in the region is the almost symbiotic relationship that local villagers have with the forest—with many locals venturing into the forest at night when non-local forest staff are ready to retire for the day.

“They have notorious smugglers and poachers among them; it goes on continuously. It’s not a large syndicate—just small groups of three, four, or five people,” Ankaraju said. “On the same day, different groups enter the forest from different hamlets.”

Among the suspected poachers in the August 15 incident, Mahima Das has a previous forest offence record while family members of at least one victim, Antony Swamy, have a prior history of multiple forest cases, sources said.

“Many of the poachers from the local villages have similar Christian names and are also interlinked. Only the verification of identities on the basis of Aadhaar cards and other documents can lead to separation of identities,” a range forest officer from the region said.

Tensions between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu CM Joseph Vijay has condemned the August 15 incident even as associates have sought a CBI inquiry into the deaths.

The Veerappan era was fraught with constant tension between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over the activities of the forest brigand, including kidnapping of prominent personalities from Karnataka for ransom and jingoistic stands taken for release of captives.

In February 2023, tensions flared between the two states after an alleged poacher, M Karavadiyan alias Raja from Kolathur in Salem, was killed when forest officials in the Cauvery Wildlife Reserve were trying to track down a gang that entered the forest for hunting.

The gang of poachers allegedly fired at forest officials at around 1.30 am on February 15, 2023, and forest officials retaliated. The body of the alleged poacher was found in the Palar river two days after the firing incident.

The Tamil Nadu government headed by the DMK’s M K Stalin “condemned the firing by the Karnataka forest department” and announced a Rs 5 lakh compensation from the CM’s relief fund to the family of the suspect who was killed.

“It was almost like a war between two states on the two sides of the river. Local political leaders and public figures often criticise the department, but fail to acknowledge the constant threat our field personnel face while protecting forest resources,” a former Karnataka forest official said.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Joseph Vijay from the TVK has condemned the August 15 incident even as associates have sought a CBI inquiry into the deaths. “It is heartbreaking that Tamils Anthony Swamy, John Rose Peter, and Kumar, who lived in villages in Hanur taluk, Chamarajanagar district, Karnataka, were shot dead by the Karnataka Forest Department in the early hours of August 15, 2026, in the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary area. I strongly condemn this massacre,” he said on social media on August 17.

“There should be an honest investigation into this horrific incident. A high-level investigation team should be formed, and the guilty should be punished. The Karnataka government should provide all necessary assistance to the families of the victims. The Karnataka government should take appropriate action to prevent such an incident from happening again,” he added.

Shivakumar, whose Congress party is an ally of the ruling TVK in Tamil Nadu, said a magistrate-led investigation has been ordered into the shootout. “Complete information will be provided after the investigation,” he added.