Sulthan Bathery: The forest department on Friday took four people into custody after they were caught cooking deer meat, a press release said.

According to the forest department, the deer, which was injured after being attacked by a pack of dogs, was later hunted down by the accused from the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary premises.

The accused are Pulikkachalil P S Sunil (59), Thadathilchalil T S Santhosh (56), P K Radhakrishnan (48) and Valamvayalil B M Sivaraman (62).

The forest department caught the accused red-handed while cooking the meat at Sunil’s house. During the raid, which was conducted on a tip-off received by the team on Friday, the forest department personnel also seized raw meat, a bucket in which the meat was kept, cooked meat and also arms used for hunting down the animal.