Forest Department feeling heat

KUMLIY :  As the violence in the name of the Mullaperiyar dam issue is taking place on the Tamil Nadu border, the Forest Department in the Kerala is also feeling the heat now. The agitators burnt the bullock carts of the Forest Department and the officials deployed in offices set up in the border areas are stranded now.The agitators on Saturday attacked the Forest Department office in Lower Camp and set the bullock carts for the tourist ride on fire. “The brunt of the agitation is faced by the Forest Department as people from Tamil Nadu targeted our office.They pelted stones and burnt the carts. The border offices located in the border areas like Thamara, Vengimala, Manalar and Iravanglar are cut off. The officials in these offices are stranded and food to these places could not be transported through the road. We now take daily goods in headload. The officials have to travel through core areas of the Periyar Forest. They have to cross the waterlogged area of the dam. The water level is about 6 ft and it is very hard to reach the other areas,” said Sanjayan Kumar, the Deputy Director of the Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR).There are also many employees in PTR and the Periyar Foundation who have their houses in Tamil Nadu. It is impossible to reach home as road is closed and violence is taking place in Tamil Nadu.We have not gone home for the last one week. We hope that violence will end soon and road connectivity resumes, so that we can reach home safely,” Bala Subramanium, an ecologist in the Periyar Foundation, said.