VISHVENDU JAIPURIAR
Chatra, June 29: The Forest department has punished a villager on the spot making him to sit on his heels by holding his ears for a few minutes. This act of the forest department employees has surprised many with people now starting to criticize this act. The 60-year-old man was allowed to go with a warning so as not to damage the green cover again otherwise he was threatened with action under the forest act.
Sources said the forest department employees raided Nanai forest in Pratappur on Wednesday catching the man charging him for axing the trees. Pratappur forest department fourth-grade employees Vivek Kumar and Krishna Kumar Das made the man sit holding his ears for two minutes. They warned him not to cut the trees in the future. However, the man said he was not axing the tree but collecting firewood which they use to cook food.
When asked, Vivek Kumar and Krishna Kumar Das said everyday, local villagers are axing trees and taking away the wood with them. The duo said those cutting the wood and damaging the green cover will not be spared under any circumstances. They appealed to the people not to do so.
In Pratappur and Kunda blocks, illegal felling of trees takes place regularly by villagers who get support from wood mafias and others. Even illegal sawmills are set up in dense forests with expensive logs going to Bihar with the connivance of the forest department.
On Monday, five tractor logs were sent to Bihar making divisional forest officer Rahul Kumar Meena to suspend three employees whose names surfaced in this case. Sources said the punishment to an old man was an outcome of this suspension as the department wants to save its skin from this smuggling slur. But for this they made a scapegoat to a villager who was collecting firewood, said villagers of Pratappur.
When Lagatar24.com contacted the Divisional Forest Officer of Chatra, Rahul Kumar Meena, he said he has no information about this incident. But he said no one has the right to give punishment to anyone in this way. It’s torture and I will take action in this regard, he added.
