PERNEM
Pernem police seized a JCB after angry locals stopped tree cutting activity at Tuem on Thursday.
Locals were upset over trees being felled and rushed to the site to stop ongoing work. They alerted the police and forest department officials. Former sarpanchas Kishor Naik and Ulhas Naik, former panch Uday Manjarekar and others demanded an inquiry into the activity.
A police team later visited the site and seized the JCB.
The contractor told locals that a private company had been permitted to work in the area, but Kishor Naik and Ulhas Naik rejected the claim by stating that the ‘no objection’ certificate by the panchayat was not valid. They claimed that the issue would be discussed when the new panchayat is formed.
Uday Manjarekar opined that the activity should immediately be stopped as it is detrimental to the environment. “The forest department should take a note of how many trees were cut and calculate the losses and ask those responsible for felling the trees to plant the same number of saplings in the area,” he said.
