Officials try to evict flood victims in Bhupalpally

WARANGAL: Tension prevailed at Kudurupally village in Mahadevpur mandal of Jayashankar Bhupalpally district on Friday when officials of forest department tried to evict flood-affected villagers from shelters they had constructed on assigned lands.

Houses belonging to villagers of Kudurupally had got submerged due to heavy rains and floods in River Godavari. Villagers said they had waited for two days hoping that officials would shift them to rehabilitation centres. When that did not happen, they established temporary shelters on government lands a little distance away from the national highway.

Noticing this, officials of the forest department reached the spot and tried to evict the villagers forcibly. Heated arguments ensued and at one stage villagers tried to attack the officials. They argued that instead of shifting them to rehabilitation centres, officials are trying to even evict them from the temporary shelters they had constructed on a higher ground.

Villagers maintained that they had established the shelters on assigned lands of the government and not forest lands. “How can forest officials forcibly evict us,” they asked.