Chhattisgarh: Villagers attack forest staffers in tiger reserve, three hurt

Villagers allegedly attacked a team of forest personnel and injured three of them when they arrived to clear encroachments inside a tiger reserve in Chhattisgarhs Gariaband district on FridayThe incident occurred in Taurenga buffer area of Udanti Sitanadi tiger reserve where around 200 hectare of forest land has been encroached upon by felling around 20000 to 30000 trees the reserves deputy director Varun Jain told PTIThe area is located on the border of Chhattisgarh and Odisha around 200 km from capital Raipur and is considered NaxaliteaffectedWhen a forest team reached the village to remove the encroachments and set up water harvesting structures villagers held three forest guards hostage and assaulted them with sticks he saidThey also pelted stones on three vehicles of the forest department and one belonging to NGO workers breaking windshields and window panes the official saidThe situation was subsequently brought under control and 20 villagers including women were detained he saidWhile carrying out GPStracking in the area a few months ago forest personnel found that a large number of trees had been chopped in the area which was covered with dense forest before 201112 the official saidThe GPStrack file was evaluated with Google Earth imagery which clarified that before 201112 there was dense forest in the area he saidFor further confirmation the images were matched with satellite images from the Indian Space Research Centre ISRO which clearly showed that trees were chopped off on a large scale after 201112 in the area and forest land was converted into farmland and huts were built he saidThe investigation revealed that around 65 families from neighbouring Odisha and adjoining districts of Bastar settled there and named the place as Ichradi village and they felled around 20000 to 30000 trees he saidPeople there also allegedly indulged in the smuggling of teak he saidThe forest department had last month caught a consignment of teak worth Rs 10 lakh from the interstate border in the area which was reportedly supplied from Ichradi the official saidVillagers were served notices twice seeking their replies and documents in support of possessing the forest land When they did not cooperate they were asked to vacate the land but they did not do he saidFollowing this the forest personnel launched an exercise to remove encroachments on May 26 he saidVillagers attacked forest staffers injuring a deputy ranger and forest guard on May 26 he said adding that six villagers were detained for the incident and later releasedAt least 69 huts were removed using a JCB at that time but again 2530 huts came up in the area he saidWe have planned to set up 50000 water harvesting pits on the encroached land to prevent soil erosion and recharge underground water Jain saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever