HYDERABAD: A day after violence marred the attempt of forest department officials to conduct afforestation at a 20 hectare degraded forest land in Sirpur Kaghaznagar, around 700 officials of the forest department from various districts on Monday came together in a show of unity accompanied with around 300 police officials and conducted afforestation drive again at the same spot on Monday. The afforestation drive went smooth and there were no violent incidents or protests.
On Sunday, when the forest officials accompanied with police officials had reached the degraded forest site to conduct afforestation as part of the compensatory afforestation works at forest lands diverted for the construction of Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme, they were stalled from taking up afforestation works by a violent mob of protesters from the nearby Sarsala village.
ALSO READ | Telangana woman forest officer, on plantation drive at Kaleshwaram project site, thrashed by TRS MLA's brother
The mob also included former Vice Chairman of Kumrambheem Asifabad district Zilla Parishad vice chairman, Koneru Krishna, who attacked and seriously injured a woman Forest Range Officer, Ch Anitha. Koneru Krishna is the brother of Kaghaznagar MLA, Koneru Konappa.
However, on Monday around 700 forest officials of various ranks ranging from District Forest Officers to the Forest Beat Officers from Adilabad, Asifabad, Nirmal, Mancherial, Warangal, Jangaon, Bhupalpally, Mulug, Kothagudem, Sircilla, Karimnagar, Peddapalli reached the 20 hectare degraded forest land in Kaghazanagar to conduct the afforestation works again and were accompanied around 300 police officials. This time, the officials did not face any trouble in carrying out their duties.
Kaghaznagar DFO, Raja Ramana Reddy told Express, "On Sunday night our superiors instructed us and by Monday morning forest officials including the district forest heads from various districts gathered in Kaghaznagar for conducting the afforestation works. There have been no disturbances in conduction of the afforestation works."
While the Kaghaznagar incident grabbed a lot of attention, there have been regular incidents of forest officials coming under attack from mobs supported by local elected representatives, whenever attempts are made to protect forest lands from encroachment at various districts in the state. Just in Kamareddy district there have been four such incidents in the last one month.
As a result, the forest officials from various districts coming together on Monday at Kaghaznagar serves as a sign of unity by the forest department, against forest land encroachers supported by politicians.