Saving elephants, the Hosur way

What began as a project to prevent armed murders turned out to be a life-saving exercise for wild elephants

It was smack bang in the lockdown during the second wave of COVID-19, in June 2021, that a young TNPS (Tamil Nadu Police Service) officer K Kiruthikaa took charge as Deputy Superintendent of Police at Denkanikottai, Krishnagiri district.  Within three days, with the help of her boss, Superintendent of Police, Krishnagiri district, E Sai Charan Tejaswi, she had put together a plan to tackle what was a major issue in the area. Kiruthikaa’s father, a retired Indian Forest Service officer, helped, by cajoling the Hosur forest department to join the task. Ms. Kiruthikaa and her boss were concerned about the number of murders using guns in the Hosur area – specifically in Denkanikottai, Thally, Anchetty and Kelamangalam. Drunken brawls had resulted in men getting shot dead. They could not understand how the gun culture had arrived in these seemingly sleepy, remote villages lining the Eastern Ghats.