Five booked in Karnataka's Chamarajanagar for locking up Forest Department personnel in cage

They had accused Forest Department authorities of negligence in trapping the tiger that was targeting their livestock

Gundlupet (Chamarajanagar dist): The police have registered a case against five people of Bommalapura village in Gundlupet taluk of Chamarajanagar district on the charges of obstructing government employees from discharging their duty, issuing life threat, and locking up Forest Department personnel in a cage that was set up to trap a tiger.

The police registered the case against Raghu, Prasad, Deepu, Gangadhar Swamy and Revanna, all residents of Bommalapura village, based on a complaint lodged by the Gundlupet Assistant Conservator of Forest.

Accusing Forest Department authorities of negligence in trapping the tiger that was targeting their livestock, farmers had locked up the department personnel in the cage at Bommalapura on Tuesday.

The complaint stated that the personnel of Platoon-1 of the Special Tiger Conservation Force, including deputy range forest officers Gnanashekar, Karthik Yadav, and Vinay and patrolling team members Basave Gowda and Suchitra were on their way for a combing operation in a department vehicle when they were waylaid by the locals at Bommalapura, under Gundlupet buffer zone.

The villagers vented their ire by expelling air from the tyres of the department vehicle. They forced the team members to alight from the vehicle and locked them up in the cage.

They also locked up buffer zone employees Santosh, Praveen, Subramanya, Manikanta, Shivanna, Rajappa, Basavaraju, Raghavendra and even threatened to set them ablaze. This incident has demoralised the department staff, and they are discharging their duties under fear, the complaint stated and sought legal action against the accused.