Sarun
Idukki: Police registered a case against the forest officials, who entrapped a tribal youth in a false poaching case at Kannampadi in Idukki. Thirteen officials including forester Anilkumar and Divisional Forest Officer B Rahul were named as accused in the case.
Police refused to take a case initially when the tribal youth Sarun lodged a complaint alleging that the forest officials attempted to trap him in a false case. According to Sarun’s complaint, the officials in the forest department booked him for possessing wild meat and assaulted him brutally.
The police were forced to register a case against the forest official following the intervention of the SC/ST Commission.
The forest officials are booked for offences such as custodial torture, verbal abuse, illegal detention, conspiracy, and tampering with evidence in the case. Certain provisions in the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act were also charged against the accused.
The forest officials had taken Sarun into custody on September 20. Police found that the forest officials were foisting a false case upon him by keeping the wild meat seized from another spot, in Sarun’s autorickshaw. Though the Department of Forest took disciplinary action against the accused, the case against Sarun was not repealed.