Four arrested for pelting stones on police

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Jammu: A police team was attacked by locals with stones while it was tracking a gang of drug peddlers in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district, police said on Monday. Acting on a tip-off, the police team led by Rajouri city in-charge Sub -Inspector Danish Maqbool raided a shop where the peddlers were present.

The owner of the shop fled the spot and when the police team tried to catch hold of him, his family members started pelting stones on the police. In the attack, some of the team members were injured, Rajouri SSP Yougal Manhas said. A team headed by Rajouri SHO Ajaz Haider and DSP Govind Rattan was rushed to the spot and the situation was brought under control. A case was registered against six accused and four were arrested, the SSP said. He said that a special team has been formed to nab the two accused who were at large.

In another case, more than 50 officials of the forest department and the police were brutally attacked with an axe and chilli powder inside the core Kelpani area of Melghat Tiger Reserve. The police and forest officials were asking villagers who had set up house inside the forests to return to the new houses constructed for them outside the forest area as part of a government rehabilitation programme.

According to the Forest Department, around 50-60 officials including policemen were attacked in the Kelpani area of the Akot division of Melghat Tiger Reserve. Some villagers too have been injured in the incident. Range Forest Officer Atul Deokar, general secretary of the Forest Rangers' Association, Maharashtra, said, "The association strongly condemns the attack. The villagers have been regularly harassing the forest staff under the garb of being a tribal population and pressing for undue demands against government policy. Yet, the forest staff dealt with them very patiently and never used force." The villagers, he said, attacked the forest and police staff with an axe and by slinging stones, injuring most of them and damaging forest property. "A large area in the core Melghat Tiger Reserve was also burnt down by the villagers," Deokar added.

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