Citizens must take responsibility to protect forest and wild animals: DGP

Hyderabad : In the first ever state wide videoconference with the Superintendents of Police and District Forest Officers all over the state exclusively on forest protection issues, Telangana DGP Mahender Reddy called for a more active role to be played by police officers in curbing forest offences.

He has instructed the police officers right up to the SHO level to respond quickly and show a sense of urgency, whenever attempts are made to encroach forest or fell trees for smuggling or poach wild animals. There should be regular co-ordination meetings between Forest, Police and Revenue officials so as to ensure better forest protection. He instructed all the SPs to include forest protection as an agenda item in their monthly crime review meetings. He further stressed on the need to have village level community outreach programs by the Police in the sensitive areas to bring more awareness amongst public for forest conservation. Police should also play an active role in educating the public representatives regarding the forest destruction that is taking place, he said.

The DGP has asked the police officers to use the timeline series images of the encroached area using google map, so as to communicate the message straight to the heart. He said we should focus on prevention of forest offences than on merely booking cases. The DGP further extolled the police to use their vast network of intelligence wing to identify the kingpins involved in encroachment of forest land, smuggling of forest produce and poaching of wild animals and take stringent action against them under the PD Act. The DGP has extolled all the police personnel in the state to actively participate in the 4th phase of Haritha Haram program and make it a big success.

Ajay Mishra Spl. Chief Secretary EFS&T has impressed upon the need to increase the tree cover in the state from 24% to 33% by ensuring that all plants planted under Haritha Haram are well protected and maintained. He stressed the need for more effective forest protection through better inter departmental co-ordination with Police.

P.K. Jha Prl.CCF solicited the co-operation of the Police personnel in curbing encroachment, smuggling and poaching activities more effectively. He stated that the department is demarcating the forest boundary permanently through continuous peripheral trench and sought police assistance in accomplishing this in encroachment prone areas. Akbar CCF Warangal made a presentation regarding the impact of forest destruction for cultivation by showing the loss of forest since 2011 in a time line series. The video conference was attended by senior officers from forest and police departments.