Akshay Azad
Early Times Report
Jammu, Oct 21: The top authorities of Forest department are creating rifts between Territorial Forest division employees and Forest Protection Force (FPF) to stop them from raising their voice against the administration.
The administration has succeeded in creating an atmosphere of animosity by applying ‘divide and rule’ policy. They have registered a criminal case against All Jammu and Kashmir Non-Gazetted Officers Association through a Forest Protection Force (FPF) inspector.
Sources said that since the new Forest Minister assumed office, anger had been brewing among the employees, including the FPF jawans, over the alleged dictatorial decisions taken by heads of various wings of Forest department.
“Being a force, the FPF jawans cannot lodge protest, but time and again All J&K Non-Gazetteed officers have been registering protests against the decisions. This was not acceptable to the administration”, sources said, adding that on October 17, the administration got an opportunity to divert the attention from the real issue.
President of the Association, Ravi Kumar, and senior vice president Gurucharan Singh, who are on anticipatory bail, said they have been treated as ‘terrorists’ by the department. FIRs have been registered against them under sections 341, 323, 332, 353, 382, 504 and 506 of RPC. The non-bailable sections were deliberately invoked so that a strong lesson must be taught to them.
“Our FPF counterparts have been saying that the injured FPF Inspector had recorded his statement under pressure from the Minister as well as officials of the department. Now he cannot change his statement, apprehending action by Minister as well as officials”, the office bearers said, adding that the divide and rule policy of administration would not work in the department and their nefarious designs would not be succeed.
They further said that Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) had misbehaved with the Association members, and the protest of October 17 was against PCCF, not against the Minister.
“Even we had asked the DFO to ask PCCF to invite us in the meeting of October 17 again, but no one came”, they said, adding that they were unaware as who had thrashed the FPF Inspector Jaipal Sharma.
“FPF guards and Inspectors are our brothers, and on behalf of the Association we regretted for injuries inflicted on Jaipal Sharma. We can easily solve the matter but now administration has been trying to fuel anger among FPF and Territorial Forest employees”, the Association members said, adding that cases were deliberately framed against Association members to weaken it.
The Association members asserted that administration has been leaving no stone unturned to demoralize them but they would fight it tooth and nail. “If government will not revoke all the suspension orders and withdraw all the cases framed, Association will be compelled to launch a massive strike across the state”, the Association members said.
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