Bandipur incident: Forest personnel were waylaid and intimidated by villagers, say authorities

The Forest Department has registered a police complaint against a few villagers of Bommalapura in Gundlupet taluk of Chamarajanagar district for locking up 10 field staff in a tiger trap cage on Tuesday.

The bizzare protest was to express their ire against an alleged casual and delayed response of the Forest Department in capturing a tiger that frequents the village from where cattle kills had been reported.

Bommalapura village is in the buffer zone of the Bandipur Tiger Reserve and the Assistant Conservator of Forest has said in a statement that members of the Special Tiger Protection Force Platoon 1, who were on their way to Bommalapura for combing operations, were waylaid and intimidated by local villagers.

The incident took place on Tuesday, September 9, and the authorities identified the accused villagers as Raghu, Prasad, Deepu, Gangadharswamy, and Revanna and alleged that they forcibly bundled the forest personnel into the cage and hurled abuses at them. The five accused also reportedly deflated the tyres of the vehicle in which the field staff were travelling.

After bundling them into the large trap cage, the accused instigated a few other villagers to pile firewood around the cage and set it ablaze, said the authorities.

The five were accused of preventing the field staff from discharging their duty and issuing threats to their lives, on the basis of which the complaint was registered with the Gundlupet Police. Investigation is currently under way.