Range forest officer Suresh Darade is still in a state of shock following the events of April 30. “Those were the worst fours hours of my life. Surrounded by a furious mob of over 300 people, armed with sticks, rods and stones, my team and I would have been killed had fortune not favoured us,” he said.On April 30, a team of forest officers led by assistant conservator of forests, VP Patil and Darade, raided the Sadanandbaba Ashram in Tungareshwar Wildlife Sanctuary to confiscate the peacocks illegally domesticated there. However, an angry mob of devotees present there thrashed the group for several hours.A visibly upset Darade said, “We reached the ashram at around 12.30 pm. Our team found four peacocks there and tried to confiscate them. But the devotees present there objected and the situation soon became highly volatile.”Sensing danger, the forest officials decided to leave the place and return with additional force. In the meantime, someone from the ashram called Atmaram Patil, one of the trustees, who instructed the devotees to detain the forest officials till he arrived. “At around 1 pm, when we were getting ready to leave, the devotees closed the ashram’s main gate and asked us to wait for Patil. When they snatched our car keys and punctured the tyres, I knew we were in real danger.”Darade called Virar police station. But the police reached the spot after three hours, Darade said. The trouble started when Atmaram Patil started to thrash the forest officials. “Seeing him, the other devotees also started to hit us with sticks, iron rods, stones. They continued this for three hours and we weren’t sure whether we would get out alive,” said Darade. The forest officials were later locked inside a room. “The police team took forever to arrive. With each passing moment our hopes of escaping alive were getting grimmer. Finally the police arrived at around 4 pm and rescued us.” The Virar police registered an offence under sections 143, 353, 332 and 345 of the IPC and arrested seven persons, including a lady, for the assault. Rohit Patil, Gurunath Patil, Dattatraya Raje, Adesh Patil, Shweta Mahajan, Narendra Patil and Datta Andhale, were, however, released on bail. The incident has upset the forest officials. A delegation wanted to meet superintendent of police, Thane (Rural) Naval Bajaj, on Friday, to demand immediate action against the culprits and hand over a memorandum. It could not meet him as he was not present in his office. The delegation comprised representatives of the association of assistant conservators of forest, association of range forest officers, and the union of foresters and forest guards.
Source: DNA
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