Mumbai, July 6: Burnt hair and bones of chinkaras have been found in the farmhouse of a Maharashtra minister in Mahabaleshwar, strengthening suspicions that at least two protected animals had been served for dinner.

Dharamrao Atram, the minister of state for tribal welfare as well as transport, is the prime suspect in the case and he could be arrested soon, a forest official said. Atram is a member of Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party, which rules the state along with the Congress.

The minister has already been questioned. “We have the evidence we need. We have already filed a case under the Protection of Wildlife Act and arrested two persons. Atram’s official car, suspected to have been used to hunt the deer on June 14, has been seized,” the forest official said.

Atram was scheduled to reach Mumbai late on Sunday. Sources hinted that the minister and his driver were likely to be arrested in Mumbai after officials completed the legal formalities.

“We have confiscated a few animal skins and trophies and some firearms from Atram’s family residence in Gadchiroli district (on the Madhya Pradesh-Maharashtra border). Three vehicles, three guns and a revolver were submitted in court on Thursday night,” the forest department official said.

Assistant conservator Rishikesh Ranjan, in charge of the investigation, confirmed the interrogation and raid but declined to give details of confiscated objects.

Forest officials in Bhor, a protected sub-division near Pawar’s constituency Baramati in Pune, were alerted by villagers who saw Atram in his official car with a red beacon on June 14.

He was accompanied by some other people and two more cars. All the three cars have since been seized.

Atram spent June 14 at Mahabaleshwar in Satara, some 80km from Bhor, where he hosted a dinner for his friends. The minister, while saying that he had passed through the region, has denied any involvement in the crime.

The forest officials had searched the minister’s car with the red beacon when he was away in Singapore last month. The officials suspected that at least two chinkaras, listed in Schedule I of the Wild Life Protection Act, were killed on that night.

If found guilty, the minister can be jailed for four to 10 years and will have to be sacked from the state cabinet. Actor Salman Khan was sentenced to five years in prison by a Jodhpur court for killing chinkaras but an appeal is being heard now.

Maharashtra forest minister Baban Pachpute, also from the NCP, had earlier given a clean chit to his cabinet colleague but later announced that “the law will take its own course”.

The forest department has been given instructions to conduct an impartial inquiry, according to sources.