Four men from Maharashtra arrested for gangraping Bengal Monitor Lizard

Four men from Maharashtra arrested for gangraping Bengal Monitor Lizard

Mangalore Today News Network / News18

April 14, 2022: Four men have been arrested for allegedly raping a Bengal monitor lizard at Sahydari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra. A report in India Today says that the accused, identified as Sandeep Tukram, Pawar Mangesh, Janardhan Kamtekar and Akshay Sunil, entered the tiger reserve in the Gabha area at Gothane. The forest officials came to know about the incident after they checked the mobile phones of the accused. The men had allegedly recorded the act of gang-raping the monitor lizard in their phones. The accused had come to the forest from Konkan to hunt. The officials at Sangli forest reserve spotted them through CCTV cameras and traced them.

 

The forest officials are perplexed by the incident and said that they accused will be produced in court. If the charges are found to be true, the men might be jailed for seven years.

The Bengal monitor lizard is a reserved species under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972. They are generally hunted for meat. These large terrestrial animals can weight up to 7 kg.

Last month, a man from Kerala allegedly raped and killed a pregnant goat. Kerala Police arrested a hotel employee, Senthil, for the crime in Kasargod district. Some employees of the hotel heard a commotion in the backyard, where two goats were kept. The employees found that the pregnant goat was bleeding and was outside its cage. The goat, soon succumbed to injuries, the police added. The goat, which belonged to the Hotel, was four months pregnant. The employees were able to nab Senthil, who has been working as an employee at the hotel for three-and-a-half months, from the spot. However, two men were seen escaping the area by scaling the wall. According to the FIR, the section for unnatural offence was included based on the complaint. The preliminary report of the government veterinary surgeon confirmed that the goat was sexually assaulted.