Hyderabad: In an altercation between forest officials and tribal people in Chandrugonda village, Bhadradri Kothagudem district, tribal women lodged a police complaint alleging that they were beaten up by the forest officers.
The incident happened between June 24 and 25 but the First Information Report (FIR) was registered on June 26 (Sunday).
According to a report by The New Indian Express, there are around 35 Gottikoya families. These families migrated from Maddukur and Bendalapadu forest areas of Chhattisgarh to Telangana in search of better agricultural opportunities.
In the first incident reported, the tribal women allege that they were stopped by forest officials from planting cotton. In the second incident, forest officials reportedly attacked five tribal women who the latter allege that the former has been harassing them for years.
According to the tribal women, the forest officials do not allow them to cultivate cotton and podu.
When Siasat.com spoke to Forest Range Officer Srinivas Rao, he agreed that there was an altercation between his men and the tribal people but not everything is true.
“There were around 30 people of which 10 were men and the rest are old women and some pregnant women. We were just six officers. These men intentionally let the women take the center stage and hence we end up arguing with their women,” he said.
“On Friday and Saturday, the tribals had started ploughing in the restricted area. In March we had built a cattle trench in order to protect the land from cattle grazing,” he continued.
The officer told Siasat.com that the tribals tore away the trenches and started cultivating fields in the middle of the forest. The tribals even started ploughing fields during the rainy season.
“When we tried to stop this, the tribal men asked their women to fight. Being women, we could not do much. Then suddenly they started throwing stones at us in which one of our officers was injured,” the officer said.
This is not the first time that such incidents have occurred. In 2015, clashes between villagers and forest department personnel were reported in which 10 farmers and 4 officials were injured.
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