Bengaluru: The killing of three alleged poachers by Karnataka forest personnel in Chamarajanagar district continued to reverberate in political circles, with opposition BJP Tuesday questioning Tamil Nadu chief minister C Joseph Vijay’s ‘meddling’ and asking whether he was acting as CM of the entire state or only of a particular community.Karnataka BJP chief BY Vijayendra said Vijay had written to chief minister DK Shivakumar over Saturday’s incident at Hanur, while an archbishop had sought govt jobs and compensation for the families of the deceased.“Is it right to give a caste or religious colour to the deceased?” Vijayendra asked. He said BJP and JD(S) had raised the issue in the assembly and sought Rs 1 crore compensation and a govt job for a family member of each of the three deceased on humanitarian grounds.Meanwhile, Shivakumar warned Tamil Nadu politicians against interfering in Karnataka’s administration and said each state must handle its own law-and-order issues.Vijay had called the killings of Anthony Swamy, John Rose Peter and Kumar a “massacre” and rejected Karnataka’s account of an exchange of fire allegedly during an anti-poaching operation. The issue also figured in the Tamil Nadu assembly Tuesday, with legislators demanding a high-level probe.The Karnataka govt has insisted that the three were ‘hunters’, pointing out that weapons, animal meat and rations were recovered from them, an indication that they intended to stay in the forest for sometime.Meanwhile, BJP Tuesday constituted a “fact-finding” team to ascertain the circumstances leading to the killing of the three suspected poachers in Hanur wildlife range on Saturday. The team comprises state BJP vice-president N Mahesh, state secretary Lakshmi Ashwin Gowda, state president of the party’s Minority Morcha Anil Thomas, former MLA CS Niranjan Kumar, and party member Hanur Venkatesh. The committee has been directed to visit the incident site, conduct an inspection, and submit a comprehensive report within a week.
