Mandur villagers protest against forest department

Kolhapur: Residents of Mandur village observed a complete bandh on Monday to protest against the forest department's intransigent policies.The forest department, for the past seven days, did not take any notice of the ongoing sit-in agitation of farmers led by Dr. Bharat Patankar. This prompted the villagers to call for the bandh.The office of Chandoli National Park, part of Sahyadri Tiger Reserve (STR) is located at Mandur village. With the increasing man-animal conflict scenario and introduction of tigers into the STR, a rift between the department and villagers around the forest area has increased.Prakash Patil, a farmer from Mandur, said, "The forest department testing our patience. Now, we don't just want discussions, we want concrete decisions. This protest will not be called off until our demands are met. The entire village is in a state of panic due to the damage to agriculture and threat to human life caused by wild animals. The authorities don't pay attention to our demands."Even though the farmers have been protesting for the past seven days, not a single competent officer of the wildlife department visited the protest site.TOI tried to contact range forest officer (Chandoli) Rushikesh Patil, but the calls were unreachable.