Drunken brawl leads to chopping down of two fully grown trees in Hyderabad

In a bizarre incident in the city, two fully grown decades old trees, were hacked down in a string of events following a drunken brawl about two years ago.

The trees in question — a 40-45 years old peepal, and a 20-25 years old jamun — were in the middle of 40-feet road in RTC Colony, Chintalkunta in the Malkajgiri Municipal Corporation’s purview. According to locals, the trees had existed on the road margins along with a neem tree, before the road leading to a residential gated community was widened around 2016.

The neem tree was the first casualty a few years ago on the pretext that it was obstructing the path of electrical wiring. Not long after, a scuffle broke out between a few people from the community, and RTC Colony residents who were consuming liquor under the peepal tree. Things escalated and the fight came to blows, eventually leading to criminal cases.

Less than a month ago, around the time that Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy had launched the Vanamahotsavam-2026 tree plantation drive by planting a ‘Nagalingam’ sapling in Gurramguda forest block, attempts were made to fell the peepal tree, by chopping off the branches. Forest Department officials were alerted and a beat officer came and issued a warning to the perpetrators and left. A day after that, the tree was chopped down to a stump. After receiving a complaint, the Forest Department officials conducted a panchanama, and levied a fine of ₹50,000 on the people who felled the tree, which was immediately paid.

While the timber from the tree was sold away by the perpetrators after paying the penalty, foresters ignored it saying the tree belonged to the municipality which was authorised to take action.

In the intervening night between July 5 and 6, the jamun tree too was chopped off, with no fear whatsoever about the penal action.

Forest Department officials, under the condition of anonymity, cited an agreement between the two parties to the previous criminal case, as the root cause which sealed the fate of the two trees. As per the agreement, the aggrieved side wanted the trees to be eliminated in exchange for a compromise with regard to the criminal case.

“It only goes to show how easy it is to cut down fully grown trees in Hyderabad. The irony is, it was done twice at the same location by the same people in spite of the intervention by the Forest Department who, by the way, will now step in and impost a paltry amount as fine. They can’t bring back the trees-- both native varieties that give plenty of oxygen for decades and support extensive life,” said Uday Krishna Peddireddi, from Vata Foundation.

He says such insensitive attitude percolates down from the people in power.

““Like rulers, like people. What else can we expect from citizens who are governed by planners with similar thought process?” he says, while recounting a number of such instances where trees were felled at will, over flimsy reasons such as shop facades being blocked.

Uday Krishna Peddired demanded that the Forest Department should ensure plantation of six trees at the same spot and slap criminal cases against the errant, besides penalties.