Simlipal, Mayurbhanj, Odisha, dated : 26th June 2025
Community Networks Against Protected Areas (CNAPA) strongly condemns the recent atrocity,
where Ho Adivasi women of Bakua village were intimidated, sexually abused, and their dignity
compromised by personnel of Similipal Tiger Reserve, Mayurbhanj district, Odisha. As per
ground reports, on the afternoon of 16th June 2025, some men and women of Bakua, which is
located deep inside the Simlipal forests designated as core zone of the tiger reserve, were on
their way to their village carrying roofing sheets on a hired pick-up vehicle to repair their houses.
Upon arriving at the forest check gate located near Khejuri village, the vehicle was denied entry
and villagers were asked to go walking. The women tried to reason with the arbitrary obstruction
by the two forest department personnel posted at the check gate stating that their vehicle be
allowed as it was impossible for them to physically carry the roofing sheets under heavy rains
for 8 kilometres to Bakua from Khejuri. Further, the villagers also shared that these sheets are
needed urgently for repairing the roofs of their houses before the onset of heavy monsoonal
rains and that this was their basic human right and the forest guards had no right to prevent them
from taking the vehicle to their village.
However, in an act of unprovoked hostility, the two forest personnel verbally abused the women
with casteist and sexist slurs and physically assaulted the women, ripping off their clothes and
injuring them. Women were pushed around and dragged away from the gate by their clothes,
and in the process, some were inflicted with bodily injuries. Upon heating about the assault,
villagers of Bakua and Khejuri rushed to the site and objected to such criminal acts against their
women members, and as a mark of protest, dismantled the check gate, which was arbitrarily built
a few years back without due consent of Gram Sabhas, mandated under the Panchayat (Extension
to Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 or PESA 1996 and Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest
Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 or FRA 2006. Finally with great difficulty
and struggle the Bakua villagers took the vehicle with the roofing sheets to their village as there
was no way they could leave their sheets at Khejuri.
When a few local journalists and human rights defenders tried to cover the incident, access to
Bakua and Khejuri were denied by the Tiger Reserve officials in order to prevent the violent
assault by their own staff from coming to public view. Instead, the officials are terrorising the
villagers of Bakua through heightened surveillance and midnight raids. We have information
that on 17th June 2025, the Tiger Reserve administration lodged a false and fabricated police
complaint against all members of Bakua in an attempt to vilify them as ‘the unprovoked
assaulters and forest encroachers’. On 21st of June 2025, armed personnel from the Tiger Reserve
and police personnel from Jashipur police station jointly raided the village at around 12:30 am
and tried to arrest male leaders of the community and evict the entire village. Shaken by this
midnight assault and attempts to arrest them, the male members of Bakua are living in
constant fear and have fled into the forests and the women are living in perpetual fear and
insecurity of yet another raid and assault on them and unable to access medical treatment
for their wounds sustained during the assault at Khejuri check gate.
It must be noted that such terror and despotism in Similipal forests is not new and has been a
part of the larger agenda of the Tiger Reserve to forcefully evict villagers from their ancestral
homelands. On 24th April 2025, the Odisha Forest Department issued an arbitrary notification to
extinguish all rights of the villagers, including Bakua, over 84570 acres of forests by constituting
“Similipal National Park”. Such arbitrary extinguishment of Adivasi/ indigenous/ tribal peoples’
ancestral rights and turning their lands into a “National Park” is in blatant violation of PESA
1996 and FRA 2006.
Also, in the past, despite Bakua Gram Sabha’s unanimous rejections of the so-called “voluntary
relocation” proposals by the Tiger Reserve administration, the villagers have constantly been
coerced to vacate their homeland and resettle elsewhere. In this regard, the villagers of Bakua
have conducted a Gram Sabha on 16th May 2025 to deliberate and pass resolutions on the setting
up of arbitrary check gates, constant harassment and abuse by forest officials, and the forceful
denial of their constitutional and legal rights by the Tiger Reserve administration. The Gram
Sabha has also passed resolution against the use of fabricated records by the Tiger Reserve
officials for obtaining forest-diversion clearances and creating “land banks” for evicting Bakua
under the guise of “voluntary relocation”. In the wake of the recent atrocity against women
and the midnight crackdown on the village, the people are under unprecedented threat of
forceful eviction and dispossession.
This incident is a stark reminder of the systemic violence and human rights abuses unleashed
against forest-dependent indigenous communities across India under the pretext of
“conservation”. The violence against villagers of Bakua reflects a persisting pattern of atrocities,
terror and forced displacements endured by communities across “Protected Areas” in India.
Indigenous communities, including those in Bakua , have historically coexisted with wildlife,
relying on the forest for their livelihoods and socio-cultural practices. However, they are
increasingly surveilled, criminalised and displaced in the name of “conservation”, uprooting
their lives and withholding their rights. This incident is not an isolated event of hostility; rather,
it reveals the dark modalities of eviction that have happened in Similipal Tiger Reserve, wherein
state violence has always acted as a subtext to “voluntary relocation”. Further, the indigenous
homelands are being transformed into new frontiers of capital accumulation, such as the current
model of opening of “open-jeep safari tourism” in Similipal on lands from where people were
forcefully evicted in recent years.
Since the launch of Project Tiger by the Government of India in 1973, aided by powerful
lobbying and capital, the rights of indigenous communities have been continuously trampled
through forced evictions and the violent uprooting of peoples from their ancestral territories.
Here, we want to reiterate that since the formation of NTCA in 2005, forced evictions from tiger
reserves have been disguised as ‘voluntary relocation’ and have caused irreversible harm to
peoples’ lives, livelihoods and cultures. It is to be noted that the United Nations (Committee on
the Elimination of Racial Discrimination) has raised an alarm in response to the ongoing forced
evictions of indigenous peoples from India’s Tiger Reserves, including Similipal.
Similipal was officially declared a tiger reserve on indigenous territory in 1973, which was
further ratified in 2006 under the Wildlife Protection (Amendment) Act of 2006. The
Government of India and the Government of Odisha have neither cared to seek consent from the
communities in constituting Similipal Tiger Reserve, nor has any due process of law been
followed to demarcate indigenous territories into “core area”, “buffer area”, “National Park”,
etc. In such a scenario of lawlessness, the violent instruments of “voluntary relocation” must be
seen as a state-sanctioned policy of apartheid against forest-dwelling indigenous communities
and must be resisted.
We demand:
• Immediate registering of an FIR against the forest officials under appropriate sections of FRA
and the Prevention of Atrocities Act. Those responsible must be arrested and justice served at
the earliest and midnight radius must be stopped immediately.
• Independent and impartial investigation into atrocities and violence against women villagers
of Bakua, including the midnight raids by allowing access to lawyers, journalists and human
rights defenders.
• The Human Rights Commission and the Commission for Women must take suo moto
cognisance of the incident and issue orders to the District Collector of Mayurbhanj, the Field
Director of Similipal Tiger Reserve and the Superintendent of Police of Mayurbhanj to
immediately stop acts of aggression and intimidation against the villagers of Bakua and Khejuri
and initiate independent investigation into the incidents.
• Immediate judicial review of the Odisha Forest Department’s arbitrary policies to displace
forest-dwelling Adivasi communities from Similipal and other Protected Areas of the state.
• A commission must be set up under the supervision of a retired judge of the Orissa High Court
to review the multi-dimensional impact of management and governance of Protected Areas on
the lives, livelihoods and cultures of communities.
• Proper implementation of the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 and the
Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006
in all Protected Areas in Odisha to address the historical injustices and end the cycles of violence
and atrocities against indigenous and other forest-dwelling communities.
CNAPA also urges civil society, media and legal practitioners to engage in meaningful dialogue
with affected communities, respecting their agency and rights to use, manage and conserve
forests and biodiversity. Only through equitable and inclusive approaches can true conservation
be achieved, benefiting both biodiversity and indigenous well-being.
Signatories:
1. Nagarahole Adivasi Jammapale Hakku Sthapana Samithi, Nagarahole, Karnataka
2. Kendriya Sangharsh Samiti, Palamu, Jharkhand
3. Van Sanrakshan Sangrami Mancha, Chandubi, Assam
4. Greater Kaziranga Land and Human Rights Committee, Kaziranga, Assam
5. Tharu Adivasi Mahila Mazdoor Kisan Manch, Dudhwa, Uttar Pradesh
6. Maa Mati Suraksha Samiti, Similipal, Mayurbhanj, Odisha
7. Gram Sabha Federation, Sitanadi, Gariabandh, Chhattisgarh
8. Gram Sabha Federation, Udanti, Dhamtari, Chhattisgarh
9. PESA Committee & Forest Rights Committee, Padmaram Gram Panchayat, Appapuram,
Telangana
10. PESA Committee & Forest Rights Committee, Padmaram Gram Panchayat,
Pulitheegalabanda, Telangana
11. Vivasayigal Thozhilalargal Munnetra Sangam, Tamil Nadu
12. Van Gujjar Tribal Yuva Sangathan, Uttarakhand
13. Achanakmar Sangharsh Samiti, Mungeli, Chhattisgarh
14. Sundarbans Jana Sramajibi Mancha, Sundarbans, West Bengal
15. West Bengal Jana Sramajibi Mancha, West Bengal
16. Adivasi Sakti Sangathan, Chhattisgarh
17. Baiga Sakti Sangathan, Achanakmar, Chhattisgarh
18. National Adivasi Alliance, India
19. Search for Action and Knowledge of Tribal Initiative, Telangana
20. Centre for Social Knowledge and Action, Gujarat.
About CNAPA:
Community Network Against Protected Areas (CNAPA) is a growing coalition of Indigenous peoples
and forest-dwelling communities, Gram Sabha/Village Council federations, activists, journalists and
academics from across India. CNAPA came into being to debunk the idea of protected areas and
advocate for justice, rights, and dignity of Indigenous and forest-dwelling communities through
dialogues, resistance and cross-solidarity. This community network is committed to strengthening
peoples’ movements against the destructive idea of militarised fortress conservation imposed upon
communities. We work together to dismantle the extractive-colonial-capitalist-casteist conservation
model that is inherent to protected areas and to ensure that forests, peoples and animals continue to live
as equals.
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