BALASORE: A group of residents of a remote hillside village in Balasore district on Saturday attacked three persons, including a forest guard and two members of forest protection committee, on the charges that they were attempting rape on a woman.
The injured forest guard Anjan Das, members of Sabuja Bahini (Green brigade) Ganeswar Biswal and Budhiram Singh have been admitted in Nilagiri hospital. They condition is stated to be critical.
Police sources said the villagers of Tenda under Nilagiri police limits raided the Tenda forest beat house on the wee hours and thrashed the trio black and blue while another member Musika Singh managed to escape from their clutches.
Das, Biswal and Singh were detained by the villagers till the informed police rushed to the spot and recused them. But before the police could reach there, they had already sustained serious injuries.
The villagers alleged these four, during night patrolling, had attempted to sexually assault a 40-year-old woman of their village at about 11 pm on Friday while she was guarding paddy crops in a shed atop a tree.
Forest officials, however, refuted the allegations. They claimed the woman’s husband Sanatan Singh had killed a deer in Kuldiha reserve forest and to evade arrest his associates and fellow villages manufactured the ‘attempt to rape’ charges.
Range officer Laxman Pradhan said acting on a tip off a team of forest personnel had raided the house of Pradhan on Friday and seized deer meat though he managed to flee.
“The incident was not disclosed as since then we had been tracking Pradhan’s movement to nab him. The allegation on the forest guard and protection committee members are false and baseless,” he said.
Meanwhile, police have registered two cases following separate complaints lodged by the woman and the forest officer.
Inspector-In-Charge (IIC) Ramesh Chandra Singh said, both the complaints are being investigated.