Four arrested in Bardibas with six illegally hunted porcupines

Four people were arrested in the Lakshminiya forest in Bardibas-10 for hunting six porcupines, locally called “dumsi,” without permission.

The arrested individuals are Arun Mistri, Ramswarup Mistri, Umesh Mistri, and Dhruv Mistri, all residents of Bhaktipurnath Tole, Ishwarpur-3, Sarlahi.

Santosh Jha, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) of Sarlahi, said the suspects were stopped around 8:30 PM on Wednesday while he was travelling from Janakpur to Lalbandi. Two plastic sacks containing six dead porcupines and homemade hunting weapons were seized from their motorcycles (Ba 88 Pa 1160 and Ba 56 Pa 2240) during a check in Lakshminiya forest.

“This was unexpected, as we caught people on the road with wild animals,” Jha said. Since the porcupines were found in a forest area of Mahottari, the suspects, along with the motorcycles and carcasses, were handed over to the Sub-Division Forest Office that same night.

The suspects are currently being held at the Armed Forest Security Unit in Bardibas-4, Maimaisthan.

The four men claimed that they had hunted the porcupines in farmland, not in the forest. They said they killed the animals around 4 PM on Wednesday near a bamboo grove beside a maize field in Haripur, eastern Mahendranagar, Dhanusha district, using hunting dogs and homemade weapons. They did it at the request of farmers whose crops had been damaged.

“All four said they killed the porcupines in the fields, not in the forest. Heavy rain delayed our return home, and while passing through Lakshminiya forest, we were caught. That made it look like we had hunted in the forest,” they said.

Krishna Kumar Patel and Sikindar Chaudhary, Chiefs of the Maimaisthan Sub-Division Forest Office, said that porcupines are not a protected species. However, hunting them without following legal procedures is against the Forest Act.

“If wild animals damage crops outside the forest, they can only be killed legally by paying the required royalty and following proper rules,” they said. “No one can kill them for personal reasons. Action is being taken against the four arrested men.”