The Rayachoti Urban Police have registered cases under various sections of the IPC against the representatives of a group of Scheduled Tribe (ST) organisations on charges of preventing Annamayya District Forest Officer P. Vivek from attending to his duties and trying to assault him physically at the Collectorate on September 13.
The DFO told the media on September 17 (Sunday) that a group of ST families hailing from Shikarpalem hamlet of Thatiguntapalle village in Veeraballi mandal had been demanding title deeds and pattadar passbooks under the Recognition of Forest Rights (RoFR) Act for a patch of forest land which had red sanders trees and water bodies.
He claimed that vested interests had misled the families with false promises that they would be provided with pattas for the forest land in question.