Hyderabad: On a sunny afternoon in the first week of July 2015, a man in his late 40s jumped over the compound wall of UoH’s South campus. As he walked through the overgrown bushes, a pack of stray dogs rushed at him. The man uttered some strange sounds waving his hands. The dogs, as if they just submitted themselves to him, started following him.
As the man moved through the bushes, he spotted a large-sized monitor lizard. In a few seconds, the dogs would chase the creature and hunt it down for him.
The story of this dog whisperer, Ashok Jerripothula, might seem like an urban legend. But there are several witnesses and photographic evidences for his action.
Ashok was caught multiple times by students and UoH security guards. “But, he came back and hunted the hares and lizards over and over again. His wife and elder brother would come searching for him at UoH security office as and when he failed to reach back home at night. In such situations, they knew he was caught in the act,” said Jillapalli Ravi, a wildlife activist from UoH campus.
But continuous hunting proved fatal for Ashok. He was found dead just outside UoH campus suspectedly after being attacked by wild boars. Hunting did not stop with the death of Ashok.
Poachers continued to enter the campus to secretly capture wild animals. The men would sneak into the campus disguised as cattle feeders. The gang, which laid animal traps pretending to be construction workers is the team of poachers in UoH who deliver deer and wild boar meat to the traders in the city.
Wildlife activists from HCU say more than a 150 deer have disappeared from the campus in the last two and half years. Over 70 poachers were caught red-handed on campus in the same time period.
After the protests over the Rohith Vemula suicide issue, the university authorities strengthened the security at the gates, but the poachers find their way in and out through the broken fences around the campus.
The campus is so porous that the poachers use more than 20 illegal entry points.
“Once I spotted over seven men at the deserted space behind the S.N. school. They were walking with thick iron strings and tying them between two trees so that running animals could be trapped,” a UoH faculty member, who goes for a regular evening walk in the area, said.
