A Telangana Forest Department employee who is eight months pregnant was allegedly attacked by residents in Ootpally in Kagaznagar forest range of Kumuram Bheem Asifabad district on Tuesday, March 1. Forest Beat Officer (FBO) Sirisha, who was rushed to a nearby hospital, alleged that she was forced to run away from a large group of women armed with sticks who intended to attack her. While running away from them, she was allegedly struck on her arm with a stick.
In a video statement released from the hospital, Sirisha said that there had been resistance from the local residents in the past too, when forest officials had gone to talk to them about ‘encroachment’ of forest land. On March 1, Sirisha said she had gone to Ootpally to talk to residents about “the importance of the forest,” and to warn them of movement of tigers and tell them not to venture into the forest land. “I told them politely but they still attacked me. I am in a lot of pain. Running from them has caused me a lot of distress,” Sirisha said, also alleging that the sarpanch had refused to help the forest officials during the incident.
Sirisha said that as residents began to abuse forest officials, she went to the sarpanch’s house to seek help, who allegedly refused to intervene saying the residents wouldn’t take his advice. “I left the house to get away. My husband and Forest Watchers were with me. We didn’t notice that they had stopped the Watchers behind us, and by the time we did, around 30-40 women holding sticks blocked our scooter,” Sirisha said.
She alleged that as the women tried to push them into a ditch, she got down from the scooter and ran away. “They said they didn’t like the fact that I wasn't letting them go into the forest land,” she said.
According to The New Indian Express, Kagaznagar police have registered an FIR over the incident against the residents of Ootpally based on a complaint from the District Forest Officer of Asifabad.
In another incident in Kagaznagar, earlier in June 2019, Forest Range Officer Ch Anitha was attacked by a group of forest dwellers over a plantation drive taken up by the state government. In the incident caught on video, Anita was attacked with sticks by a mob led by TRS leader Koneru Krishna, the brother of Sirpur MLA Koneru Konappa.