A. Amar Singh, a Forest Section Officer in Sirchelma Range of Adilabad Forest Division, has decided to apply for a weapons licence, to carry one on his person to protect himself from the attacks of the dreaded Multani timber smugglers in his area of operation.
“I am readying the documents that are to be submitted with the application form,” he told The Hindu on Friday, before he a met a doctor at Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Adilabad, to get a medical certificate that indicated the seriousness of his effort.
As teak smuggling activity has increased manifold, as is evident from the seizures being made by the Range officials every other day, the threat to the lives of the field staff has also increased proportionately. “I have young children who need to be taken care of,” Mr. Singh said, justifying his intention to carry a personal weapon.
It maybe mentioned here that the FSO has undergone weapons training which, he feels, would work in his favour when the Police Department sanctions him a licence. Though he joined the range about six months ago, he worked here in an earlier stint too and had faced physical assaults by the Multanis four times.
The then government had banned the use of firearms by forest officials in 1982 when the Naxalite movement was at its peak. Since then, many officials have been killed in violent attacks, but no government has done anything to ensure that the field staff carry weapons.
The Sirchelma Forest Range team headed by Range Officer Wahab Ahmed have seized illegally felled teak worth over ₹3 crore since April 2017, but the smuggling only seems to go out of control with each passing day. There have been attacked 19 times since 1987, five of which have taken place since October 2017, including the latest in which Mr. Ahmed was injured on December 23 last.
The district administration did formulate a rehabilitation scheme for the Multani habitual timber smugglers, but it is yet to take off. “The State has failed to protect forest officials, leave alone forests,” lamented an office-bearer of a union of foresters in Adilabad.