Talking to media persons after an interaction with the villagers of Alur on Wednesday, he said the people were under impression that mining and other activities were making the wild elephants to raid villages. In fact, no no mining activities are going on in the forests and those functioning have been approved by the State government.
Earlier, the villagers vent their ire on the forest department officials for registering cases on farmers holding them responsible for the death of elephants.
The same officials fail to turn up when the villagers were injured in the jumbo attacks. A few women warned that they are ready for court arrest if Hoovaiah, who has been held responsible for electrocution of elephant calves in the taluk, was arrested.
It may be recalled that three elephant calves were electrocuted in the taluk and the department had filed a case against Hoovaiah, which has irked villagers. Besides, the incident of a school girl being injured after a tusker chased the school going children two days ago, enraged the people. They staged a protest condemning official apathy towards the lives of the people.
In order to pacify them, the police had arranged an interaction between the officials of the forest department and the farmers at Neelabanu Kalyan Mantap in Hassan on Wednesday.
Principal Chief Conservator of Forests B K Singh, Deputy Commissioner Naveenraj Singh, DCF Ambadi Madhav, former MLA B R Gurudev, ZP member Jyothi Gurudev and several others participated in the meeting.
The villagers utilised the opportunity to pour in their woes stating the officials were more bothered about the wildlife than the lives of human beings.
They demanded the forest department to withdraw cases being filed against the farmers and said they would not call of their stir till the decision was taken. The efforts made by the DC to pacify them went in vain. Later, Madhav said it is a common thing to file a case whenever a elephant dies. The department is not anti-farmer but on the contrary it always support them.
Gurudev said they have held talks with District-In-Charge minister Somanna, who has assured that the case would be withdrawn after discussing the same with the Chief Minister.
Singh said a proposal has been submitted to the Centre to relocate the elephants. Once the approval is given, all the elephants would be relocated in phases.
The DC who assured protection to the farmers, said the district administration work towards the farmers welfare.