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The special sessions court for SC/ST cases in Kumuram Bheem Asifabad district sentenced the eight men to six months’ simple imprisonment. It also acquitted 29 villagers for lack of sufficient evidence.

The video of the incident, showing FRO K Anita being surrounded by a group of men who begin to assault her with lathis on June 30, 2019, had gone viral on social media, triggering outrage from across the country.

The incident took place when Anita had gone to Sarasala village in Sirpur Mandal of Kumuram Bheem Asifabad district, along with 20 forest department personnel, to plant saplings as part of the ‘Haritha Haaram’ plantation drive of the Telangana government.

TRS MLA Koneru Konappa’s brother assaults woman forest officer at a village in Telangana. Forest Range Officer C Anita went to Sarasala village in Sirpur Mandal to take part in a plantation drive. pic.twitter.com/jE5GitgZRj

When they identified reserve forest land and started planting the saplings, some local residents, claiming that it was their land, started attacking the forest officials. Some villagers then called up Koneru Krishna Rao, who was then the vice chairman of Kumuram Bheem Asifabad Zilla Parishad and lived nearby. He then arrived with his supporters and started attacking the forest staff.

In a police complaint, FRO Anita said she tried to escape by climbing on to a tractor, but Krishna Rao followed her and assaulted her with a stick, hitting her several times on the head. Krishna Rao and his supporters also beat up other forest staff. Rao was the prime accused in the case, along with 36 others.

In the attack, Anita had suffered a fracture on a hand, and later said that she was dealing with the trauma of the attack and was having nightmares related to it.

Then Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao pulled up his party MLA Konappa for his brother’s “unaaceptable behaviour”. The accused, Koneru Krishna Rao, who was then the vice chairman of Kumuram Bheem Asifabad Zilla Parishad, was forced to resign from the post.

The special sessions court on Friday has convicted the eight accused under sections 147 and 332 of the BNS. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 8,500 each under sections 323, 353 and 427. Out of the 39 accused in the case, two had died and 37 faced trial. While eight were convicted, the remaining were acquitted.

There have been other instances, too, of forest officials being attacked in Telangana.

On November 22, 2022, FRO C Srinivasa Rao, 51, was killed after he was assaulted by a group of people, following a dispute over forest land in Bhadradri Kothagudem district.

Srinivasa Rao, a winner of the KVS Babu Gold medal for his work in preventing encroachment of forest land, was attacked with axes by villagers in Bhadradri Kothagudem district. He had gone to a plantation to meet some local leaders to resolve the issue of encroachment of reserve forest land and felling of trees planted by the forest department when he was attacked. He was rushed to a hospital in Khammam with serious head injuries, but succumbed several hours later.