Hyderabad: Two forest department officials, who were negotiating the removal of encroachments on forest land in Macharam village of the Amrabad tiger reserve, were caught in a deadly situation when some encroachers poured petrol on them and threatened to set them on fire.
The incident occurred on Friday morning when the officials, led by forest section officer Madhusudhan, reached Macharam in Nagarkurnool district to begin preparations for planting saplings on the encroached forests. Of the nearly 70 acres of the land that was encroached, the department was planning to plant trees on about 30 acres to start with.
According to officials, all the encroachments happened after 2014, the cut-off year set by the state government for allowing non-forestry activities on forest land.
Officials said that they were negotiating with the villagers, some of them Chenchu tribals who had moved out of their forest habitations many years ago, to vacate the land they occupied.
Some people who gathered there got aggressive and one of them threw petrol on the officials. A woman carried a bottle of petrol with her that was grabbed by another woman who splashed two officials with the fuel and then sought to grab a match box from another villager saying she would set them on fire.
Every claim of the villagers on the illegally occupied land was verified and was found to be false, officials said, adding that though the villagers were explained that they can be given jobs in return to vacating the occupied forest land, they refused to do so.
Cases have been filed with the police against seven villagers charging them with attempt to murder.
