Sugandhagiri case: I was put under stress to give tutored statement, suspended woman official tells dept

Wayanad: Kalpetta Forest Range Officer K Neethu who was suspended in connection with the Sugandhagiri tree felling case has communicated to the department that the probe team put her under extreme mental stress to extract tutored statements suiting their 'vested interests'.

In her letter to the Head of Forest Force and Principal Chief Conservator of Forests accessed by Onmanorama via RTI, she alleged that the probe team constituted by the department to investigate the tree felling case forced her to sign off on a statement that was tailored to incriminate her.

The letter adds to the woes of the forest department which has found itself in a bind following the slew of disciplinary measures against officials in connection with the case.

In a letter dated April 29, K Neethu said that she had repeatedly apprised the investigation official that the facts in the statement she was forced to sign were not true. ''I was entrapped by the persuasive skills of the officials,'' she writes in the letter.

K Neethu was suspended on April 18 based on a report submitted by the special probe team which slapped her with supervisory lapses leading to the massive tree felling in the Sugandhagiri plantation under the Kalpetta Forest Range. The case was that 127 trees were cut using the permit received for 20 trees in February this year.

The letter further says that Neethu K had issued the 'Form 3' passes to transport the timber based on her spot examination in person which could be proved with circumstantial evidence and material evidence. She has also attached details of the log book of her official vehicle and also pages of the official tour diary along with the letter.

''The trees were cut from 45 plots far away from each other which is part of a vast 1087 hectares of land. It had been handed over to 457 landless tribal families in 5-acre plots to each, with title deeds. The land is only a small portion of the larger 3506.20-hectare vested forest land,'' the letter notes.

As per the communication, her team arrested all the ten accused who were also produced in the court and remanded. Further, the subordinates directly involved in the crime were suspended and the vehicles used to transport the logs of wood were seized.

She also accused the probe team of having failed to unearth even a single tree stump other than those identified by her during their drone-driven search in the area.

On the charge of laxity, Neethu K said in the letter that the massive tree-cutting took place when the district reported repeated fatalities in elephant attacks. The letter says that her team was fully involved in resolving the human-animal conflict for 13 days in February.

Onmanorama made repeated attempts to get a comment from Conservator of Forests (Inspection and Evaluation) Neethu Lakshmi M, who headed the probe team but did not receive a response.