Forest guards roughed up, dragged behind tractor by sugarcane 'farmers' in UP forest near Pilibhit

Pilibhit (UP), Mar 22 (PTI) A team of forest department was attacked by some people in the Madhotanda Police Station area here when it tried to stop them from harvesting sugarcane crops on forest land.

One of the forest guards was also dragged for several metres with a tractor in which he was stuck, forest officials alleged. Madhotanda SHO Surendra Kumar Singh said, "The incident occurred Tuesday night according to the complaint and the FIR was lodged today." According to a police complaint filed by Barahi section in-charge, Forest Inspector Vashishth Kumar, it was reported Monday that some people were cutting sugarcane crop on the forest land in Majhara village and loading it in a tractor trolley.

Forest guards Abhishek and Sandeep Mandal, along with Bharat Kumar, a labourer, went to the spot on motorcycles and found some people cutting sugarcane crop, according to law, a state property, and loading it into a tractor trolley.