A Jumbo Nightmare

A forest guard-turned-poacher’s confession exposes Kerala’s biggest-ever elephant poaching scandal.

- Jeemon Jacob

The worst is over, feels Kunj­umon Devasey. Out on bail on August 25, after a year in judicial custody and jail, the whistleblower in what was Kerala’s, perhaps India’s, biggest elephant poaching case, is trying to lead a quiet life in his remote village, Kalarikudi, bordering the Idamalayar forests in Ernakulam district. He’s still an accused in 16 poaching cases, his wife is mentally not all there, but the man has no regrets about expos­ing the poaching syndicate. “I’ve no future but my conscience was killing me. It had to be done,” he says.

The 62-­year-­old former for­est watcher’s journey of atonement started on June 3, 2015, when he walked into the Karimbani range office (under Ernakulam district’s Malayatoor forest division) and told a group of stunned officials how he had, on various occasions, accompanied a group of poachers, headed by ‘Ikkara’ Vasu, and killed over 20 elephants in Vazhachal, Thundathil, Munnar and Parambikulam wildlife sanctuaries in a span of two years.

Deputy range officer K.P. Sunil Kumar thought the man had gone crazy in his old age and even advised him to “go and see a psychiatrist”. But Kunjumon stuck to his guns, and the names and mobile numbers he came up with were of known offenders in the area (though most were thought to be ‘inactive’). However, Sunil Kumar decided against ordering a basic inv­estigation or recording Kunjumon’s statement. When the latter insisted, the forester had him arrested and framed in a case of killing an elephant calf, ironically, the reason why he’d fallen out (well, that and money) with the poachers in the first place.