Dilemma: Forest guards fighting without arms

SHILLONG: Despite reports of illegal tree felling in parts of the State, forest guards are unable to secure the forest wealth as they are facing a peculiar dilemma of not being able to use sophisticated weapons.
“With the fear of militants snatching away the weapons of forest guards, they are kept in police stations,” a forest official said.
Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Territorial) C.P. Marak told The Shillong Times that the forest guards are unarmed due to previous cases of arms snatching by miscreants.
“We cannot give arms to the forest guards considering their own safety, and hence the weapons are kept at the respective police stations,” Marak said, while recollecting that there were two cases of arms snatching incidents in the 1990s. In this context, the forest range officers are left with .315 revolvers and pump action shot guns which, however, are obsolete.
The official said that the Forest department had sought the assistance of police and other security personnel for patrolling in the vulnerable forest areas along with the forest guards.
Earlier, the Civil Defence and Home Guards department had also refused to assist the ill-equipped forest guards in Garo Hills owing to the same concern.
The vast forest areas in various parts of the State are under threat from armed poachers, miscreants, militants and timber mafia alike.