Times News Network
 
Bandipur Aug 9: Imbali Jose is the new Veerappan. The forest police are now seeking him in the Nilgiris, where his predecessor had made a name killing tuskers and men.

Jose, the police believe, is just as bad, and they want him dead or alive. On record, however, they refuse to name him, acknowledge him or even talk about him. They say they want to kill him first and talk later.

"We are on the lookout for a Malayalee poacher and his gang" is as much as IGP (Karnataka CID, Forest Cell) KSN Chikkerur would say in a probable reference to Jose. “But don’t let him bother you. There are other gangs from Kerala in the region. We will get this poacher and his gang. We will also get those poachers and their gangs. I assure you they will all look the same when they are dead,’’ Chikkerur told The Times of India.

There is no ready information on Jose. This report — the first on him — is based on information pieced together from various official and unofficial sources in Kerala, Karnataka and Delhi.

Jose, 45, leads a gang that has 6-15 men from Wayanad district of Kerala. The gang members are good marksmen; they are known to bring down tuskers with one shot at the temple. “It is almost like a trademark shot of the gang,’’ says Tito Joseph of the Wildlife Protection Society of India.

The dead elephant is often found buckled on its knees.

Nobody has a count of the elephants Jose and his gang have killed so far. Informers, however, indicate that ivory carvers are not short of work in the markets of Thiruvananthapuram, where Jose sells the tusks.

Locals are tightlipped about Jose. He does not belong there, but he operates in a part where elephant hunters are feared even by the toughest of the tough.