The forest department on Tuesday launched a hunt for some unknown persons, who killed a deer on Sunday at a village under the Seraikela police station area, in the Seraikela-Kharsawan district about 40 kilometers from Jamshedpur.

The search for the hunters of the wild deer began after officials of the department found its remains at the Kandagora village on Monday, suggesting that some locals had feasted on it.

However, they could only confirm the killing of the wild animal, perhaps a barking deer, from a Facebook post uploaded by one of the killers.

The forest department is now planning to send the remains of the deer to the Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India, to ascertain its species and the way it was killed.

Seraikela divisional forest officer Aditya Narayan said various species of deer are found in a scattered way in Seraikela jungle along with other wild animals, including elephants.

“Sometimes the wild deer come in close to the human habitat from the jungle, leading the villagers to inform the forest department which then takes care of the animals and drives them away into the jungle. But this time some villagers did not find it necessary to inform the department and instead killed one of the deer, and later feasted on it,” said Narayan while talking to The Telegraph Online.

He informed that the forest department on Monday had come to know that some villagers of Kandagora had killed a deer. This led them to start an investigation based on rumours, but the confirmation came on the same night, when they bumped into the Facebook post made by one of the killers.

“From the Facebook post, we gathered that three villagers were involved in killing the deer. We are now searching for them and have carried out an extensive drive at the Kandagora village. As of now none of the three has been detected,” Narayan said.

The officer said that given the fact that there is a considerable population of barking deer at Seraikela forest division, the department has assumed that the killed one belongs to the same species.

“But we have to get confirmation about its species.This is the reason we want to get the remains of the animal examined at the Wildlife Research Institute. We are also trying to know the method in which the villagers killed the deer. This is why we will ask the institute’s forensic lab to determine it,” Narayan said.

He added that after getting the examination report from the Dehradun institute, they will charge the killers under the relevant sections.