Hundreds of fully grown and commercially important trees have been axed by thieves in the Dandeli-Anshi and Bandipur tiger reserves in Karnataka.
Sources indicated a nexus between the forest department officials and local politicians in the Kulgi range of the Dandeli-Anshi Tiger Reserve. In Bandipur, eyewitnesses pointed to the involvement of a forest watcher in the racket. According to sources, a forest guard stationed in the Kulgi beat, Kulgi range, (now promoted and posted as DRFO, Zamga section) had given a free hand to this mass plundering of fecund forests between September 2012 and December 2012).