At least nine persons were arrested after a man was shot dead by some of his group members who allegedly mistook him for a wild boar during hunting in Maharashtra’s Palghar district, a police official said on Thursday. The incident took place on January 29.
The accused have been charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder and other offenses in connection with the incident. A group of villagers had ventured into the Borsheti forest area in the Manor area of the district to hunt wild boars.
“During the expedition, some villagers got separated from the group. After some time, one of the hunters mistook them for wild boars and opened fire, hitting two villagers. One of them died on the spot,” Palghar Deputy Superintendent of Police Abhijit Dharashivkar earlier said, as quoted by news agency PTI. The deceased was identified as Borsheti resident Ramesh Vartha (60), he said.
Shocked and panicked by the accidental killing, the group dragged the body into the bushes and hid it instead of reporting the incident to police, the official said. The wife of the deceased filed a missing person’s complaint on Monday.
During the investigation, police found that a group of villagers went hunting at the Aalan Hills in Manor on January 28, Dharashivkar said in a release issued late Wednesday night. Vartha joined them the next day and was walking towards a spot where food was being prepared. His footsteps created noise among the dried leaves. Mistaking him for a wild animal, one of the group members, Sagar Naresh Hadal (28), who was hiding with a gun, allegedly fired a shot that fatally struck Vartha, the official said.
Instead of reporting the incident, the group hid the body in the bushes and fled, said the police. After detaining Hadal and questioning other suspects, police went to the spot where they found the victim’s decomposed body on Wednesday and sent it to a government hospital for post-mortem.
Police have arrested nine persons, including Hadal, in connection with the incident, the official said. The Manor police on Wednesday registered a case against the accused under sections 105 (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 238 (causing disappearance of evidence), and 3(5) (criminal act done in furtherance of common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, he said.
There were rumours that another villager was injured in the incident and succumbed to his wounds during treatment. However, Dharashivkar dismissed such reports and said the deceased, Ankush Mehloda, a resident of the Shigaon area, had no connection to the Aalan Hills firing incident. To verify the claims, Dharashivkar, along with another police official, visited Mehloda’s house and met with his family members on Wednesday.
They confirmed that Mehloda had been suffering from a prolonged illness. After working at a farm in Safala with his second wife, he returned home to Shigaon three days before his death and passed away due to the illness on January 30, the official said.