Out of fear, Maoists ban felling of trees

When 45-year-old Ramesh Murmu (name changed) recently climbed the hills at Bariyarpur in Munger district to collect firewood, he was thrashed by Maoists and instructed not to cut trees anymore.

The rebels, owing allegiance to the banned ultra outfit CPI (Maoists), have put a blanket ban on cutting of trees in the dense forest areas of eastern Bihar particularly Munger, Banka and Jamui, bordering Jharkhand.

“We have pitched in where the government has failed. The ineffective administration and corrupt forest officials have given a free hand to the timber mafia. We have, therefore, issued a diktat that henceforth no one will be allowed to enter the forest area and cut trees,” said Laljit Koda, the self-proclaimed spokesperson of the CPI (Maoist), Eastern Bihar and North Jharkhand zone, while talking to a local scribe in Munger.

The police, however, attribute the Maoists’ diktat on afforestation to the fear of being apprehended by the security agencies in view of the shrinking forests. “For years, the rebels have made the dense forest areas as their hideouts where even the local police fear to tread. With the density of forest gradually declining, these Maoists’ are under constant pressure from the cops who, of late, have entered the jungle areas to apprehend the rebels.

“It is against this backdrop that they have asked the local villagers not to cut trees anymore. It’s actually the police threat, not their love for afforestation, which has made them ban tree-felling,” explained a senior police official, who was earlier posted in Banka.