Ooty: A major forest fire that broke out in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve limits on Saturday evening, left over 25 acres of jungle lands charred. While such a fire destroyed over 50 acres in the Bandhipur Tiger Reserve (BTR-Karnataka) bordering MTR, green activists here sought a through probe on the blaze, which they suspect could be the handiwork of naxals.
A sudden wild fire began in BTR on Saturday by 2:30 pm along the MTR border, destroying the dense jungle cover.
When foresters from MTR rushed to help the BTR staff in douse the fire, another fire broke out in the Masinagudi forest range in MTR buffer zone, on Saturday evening.
Both foresters and fire fighting teams rushed to the spot and sweated it out inside the jungles to douse the fire and to check its spread to other areas.
Meanwhile, president, The Nilgiris Ecology and Animal Protection Samithi, B.K. Kumaran, wanted forest officials to probe in a different angle to study whether the fire was a handiwork of Maoist or other anti-social elements.
“Since the fire broke out suddenly both in the BTR and the MTR jungles almost simultaneously, when the top cops from neighbouring states held a meet in Ooty on Saturday, on tackling Left wing extremism, it is doubted that Maoists or some anti-social elements could have torched the jungles, in protest. Hence, a detailed enquiry is the need of the hour,” he demanded.
