The department submitted the investigation report on the case during the hearing of a bail petition filed by Atram. The report says Atram and his associates killed one more chinkara and two hares on the same night and killed a barking deer on June 16.

Half-burnt carcasses packed in a plastic bag were recovered by Forest Department sleuths headed by Sub-Divisional Forest Officer (Bhor) H G Dhumal. The remains were sent to Pune’s forensic lab and Hyderabad’s Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology for verification, the record says.

The record, based on eye-witness accounts of Atram’s six accomplices, was placed before the High Court Bench of Justice V K Tahilramani by the prosecution. However, Atram’s lawyer Sachin Dhakephalkar refuted the charges saying, “The Forest Department had not mentioned anything about the killing of animals in the Pune court. They have come up with the allegations only now before the High Court. Anyone can say anything at this stage. But all that would have to be supported by evidence. Let them give it. We will have to verify that first.”

Three-day hunt

As recorded in the Forest Department probe

• On June 13, Atram told his friend Ravi Sorap to arrange a vehicle for an “official” tour to Mahabaleshwar along the Mumbai-Pune road and be “ready for the usual”. Atram, Sorap and Suresh Biramane of Pachgani left for Mahabaleshwar in a Qualis and the then minister’s official car. They were accompanied by driver Prabhakar Wagh and Atram’s bodyguard Avinash Natekar.

• They carried a gun, a knife and a searchlight. The Mumbai Police escorted the cars to Vashi, from where the Raigadh Police escorted them up to Lonavla. Sorap’s friend Sayyad Ali Hussain, a hotelier, joined them. From Lonavla the cavalcade was escorted by a Pune Police team, but soon Atram and his friends gave them the slip near Katraj and took the Hadapsar road to reach Nira village at night. Here, the searchlight was fixed to the front of Atram’s vehicle.

• Near Chaudarwadi village, Atram killed a hare. Sanas fetched it and put it in the plastic bag. After dinner he killed another hare.

• The first Chinkara was spotted four kilometers inside the forests near Morgaon and Atram killed it. Two motorcycle-borne persons from Chaudarwadi saw them in the act but when they accosted them, they were told that the man who had killed the Chinkara was a minister. The two men, however, apprised a local journalist about the incident and gave him the vehicle registration numbers.

• Atram and his friends killed a second chinkara a few kilometres away. It was this killing that the media reported.

• Early of June 14, the dead animals, which were put in plastic sacks, were cut into pieces under an electric pole near Lonand village.

• On June 15, Atram and his associates got up early in the morning and went to the forest where they killed two jungle fowls and a barking deer. It was then that Sorap got to know of newspaper reports about their exploits. He asked his driver to wash the vehicle (Qualis) clean and got it rid of the carcasses of the animals.

• Hair suspected to be of the barking deer were recovered from Atram’s farmhouse in Pachgani later on July 4 by Forest Department sleuths. The report from CCMB is awaited. The forensic lab has confirmed the remains of the chinkara.