VIJAYAWADA: A forest protection watcher was killed after he fell off from a cliff during a scuffle with red sander cutters late Wednesday night in the Lankamalla forest area of Kadapa district. The forest staff and special Task Force constituted by the AP state opened fire on the wood cutters when they came under attack during the raid.
According to police, a joint team of forest officials and Task Force police personnel went inside the dense Lankamalla forest area in Siddavatam mandal following information of presence of red sander wood cutters in large numbers. Late in the night, they came across a group of more than 70 wood cutters at the Rollabodu beat and the police asked the wood cutters to surrender.
The wood cutters rained stones on the forest and police team and the police retaliated by opening fire in the air. While the wood cutters were trying to escape, the forest protection watcher B Ashok caught one of them and a scuffle ensued between the two. The wood cutter pushed away Ashok who fell off a cliff and suffered severe injuries.
The police or forest team could not communicate to their seniors for rushing medical aid to the injured as the communication network did not work in the dense forest area. By the time Ashok was brought out of the forest area by his colleagues and shifted to a hospital in the district headquarters, he succumbed to injuries, police said.
Following the incident, the Red Sanders Anti-Smuggling Task Force (RSASTF) had rushed additional forces into the Lankamalla and adjoining Seshchalam forest ranges to nab the wood cutters.