pune the additional commissioner of the state animal husbandry department vasant ramteke on tuesday issued instructions to officials responsible for keeping a count of livestock to gather information about rabbit farms in and around punethe instructions were given following the incident on monday where 24 dead rabbits were found at taljai hills in sahakarnagar forest officials also found 22 rabbits who appeared to be infected the sick rabbits were sent to the animal orphanage at rajiv gandhi zoological park at katraj where they are being treated the dead rabbits have been sent to the regional disease diagnosis lab in aundh for further investigationwhen contacted ramteke said the department does not have information about the number of rabbit farms and their activities as they are largely unorganised but instructions have been given to the livestock development officer to collect information about these farms speaking to toi curator of the rescue centre gaurav pardeshi said these rabbits appear to have mange a parasitic infestation of the skin the disease weakens the immune system these rabbits then fall prey to other diseases and their meat is no longer fit for consumptionmeanwhile the hunt for the owner of the rabbits has not yielded any results as neither the forest department the police or the pune municipal corporation pmc are willing to take the responsibility of finding the culprit vaibhav bhalerao range forest officer of bhamburda area said the forest department has written a letter to the sahakarnagar police station asking them to look into the matter the rabbits found at taljai are pet rabbits and the area comes under the jurisdiction of the pmcarvind patil senior police inspector of the sahakarnagar police station said it is very difficult to find the culprits in such a case already the taljai area has become notorious and even the bodies of people have been dumped here there is little chance of finding those responsible for leaving the dead rabbits there