CM’s intervention sought to check timber mafia

CM’s intervention sought to check timber mafia Alarmed over the "brazen defiance" with which the timber mafia was allegedly operating in Uttarakhand, environmentalist groups have sent a memorandum to chief minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank to look into the issue. President of the Himalayan Chipko Foundation J.B. Dabral has said in the memorandum that despite several requests for police protection, Shiv Prasad, an activist with the NGO, and his pregnant wife were victims of a murderous attack on July 10 allegedly by the timber mafia.

Prasad's pregnant wife is battling for life at the Chandra Singh Negi Hospital in Kotdwar town after they and their children were attacked by some goons near village Debikhet in the Dwarikhal block of Pauri Garhwal district. Despite efforts of some environmentalist groups even an FIR has still not been registered because of the political patronage enjoyed by the timber mafia, the memorandum said.

To make matters worse, efforts are being made to forcibly discharge Prasad's wife from the hospital even though she is hardly in a position to move out, it said. A noted wildlife conservationist Sumanta Ghosh said, "Such is the terror of the timber mafia that Shiv Prasad and his family fear that if they return to the village they will be killed. The incidents in the past week should serve as a real eye opener to all those who wish to save our nature", he added. The Chipko foundation has also filed a PIL in the Supreme Court of India in connection with massive destruction of trees in Uttarakhand state. The Chipko movement or Chipko Andolan (to stick) is a socio-ecological movement that practised the Gandhian methods of satyagraha and non-violent resistance, through the act of hugging trees to protect them from being felled. The modern movement started in the early 1970s in the Garhwal Himalayas of Uttarakhand, with growing awareness towards rapid deforestation.