Crackdown on Forest Land Encroachment in Solapur village; 19 Arrested Amid Opposition

Kolhapur: Forest department officials in Solapur district carried out a campaign to remove encroachment on about 18 acres of forest land in Aljapur village of Karmala taluka in a bid to eradicate encroachment by citizens.

The officials registered a case against 15 men and four women under Section 26 of the Indian Forest Act, 1927.Despite strong opposition to the action from the accused encroachers, all 19 accused were arrested amid heavy police deployment, with 70 personnel from the forest department and around 20 personnel from the Karmala police station. The area was cordoned off after the action.Assistant conservator of forests (encroachment eradication department), Ajit Shinde said, “Since the past two and a half months, hundreds of trees have been cut from 18 acres of forest department land in Aljapur.

20 huts were built by encroaching on it. The Khadki Gram Panchayat, the Aljapur Gram Panchayat and villagers from both these places had opposed the people residing on encroached forest land. The forest department had issued timely notices to these residents.

As they didn’t co-operate, we had to take action abiding by the law. We will plant new indigenous trees here after conducting panchnama.”Yogesh Ghodke, the range forest officer from Karmala said, “Nomadic community members are protected by the Atrocities Act.

Therefore, it took time to act because they were given proper notice. Earlier, when we tried to prevent encroachment, the encroachers tied up our employee and kept him in custody. We will investigate the felled trees, their disposal, traders, buyers, vehicles.”The accused who were arrested for encroachment on the forest land are Anuja Shivaji Kale (45), Reshma Ganesh Pawar (39), Lakshmi Ashok Pawar (25), Savita Sham Kale (35), Sham Dada Kale (39), Shivaji Popat Kale (55), Parmeshwar Dashrath Kale (40), Rajinikanth Shivaji Kale (24), Sachin Suresh Pawar (25), Sunil Ashok Kale (40), Parrot Bharat Kale (30), Sharad Chandu Pawar (35), Deepak Ashok Kale (30), Gulab Bharat Kale (28), Ravi Shivaji Kale (25), Gorakh Bharat Kale (25), Pritam Janakiram Kale (22), Santosh Janakiram Kale (21), Ganesh Sham Kale (22).

All the accused are residents of the Jamkhed Taluka in Ahilyanagar district and have been remanded to 15 days of judicial custody.Eight poachers held from the Amboli forest rangeThe Amboli forest range office under Kolhapur circle arrested eight poachers and seized wildlife and hunting equipment at Choukul and Shirgaonkar Point in the Amboli Forest Range.Assistant conservator of forests Vaibhav Borate said, “While our patrolling team of the Amboli forest department was on a routine patrol on Thursday, a man was was found carrying a dead porcupine.

Our team arrested the accused and also seized a gun, a dead porcupine, a head torch, and other hunting equipment.”The man was identified as Vithu Waghu Kokre, a resident of Choukul village in Sindhudurg district.While the patrolling team was returning to Amboli, they inspected a few youths Shirgaonkar Point. The team found a cartridge gun, seven live cartridges, 10 used cartridges, two torches, a sword, a dead mouse deer, and an Indian civet with the youths.

The team arrested seven people , including six from Kolhapur and one local. However, two of their accomplices managed to flee the spot.The arrested were identified as Pawan Prakash Desai from Kadgaon village, Javed Salim Jamadar from Yadvnagar village, Hasim Hussain Kaji from Tirwade Kadgaon village, Bharat Navlu Patil from Choukul village in Sindhudurg district, Vanu Phonde from Yerandpe village, Ganesh Patkar from Pimpri Chinchwad area and Akash Mohan Kurane from Yadavnagar village were arrested.

The court has remanded all these suspects in forest custody till June 20.The operation was carried out under the guidance of deputy conservator of forests Milish Sharma and assistant conservator of forests Vaibhav Borate, and was executed by range forest officer Vaibhav Bhise, and forest personnels Namdev Chougule, Mehbub Nayakwade, Samrat Patil, Gorish Rane, Ravindra Patil, Sangram Patil, Tanaji Chavan, Vasudev Khot, Aniket Aware, and Aniket Deshmukh.