Digboi:Â Amidst ongoing concerns over widespread encroachment in Assam, the Lekhapani Forest Department has summoned Jewel Ali, a prominent Tea businessman of Margherita in Upper Assam’s Tinsukia district, to appear before the Investigating Officer (IO) on May 3, 2025.
Lekhapani Range Case No. LP/01 of 2024-25, concerning alleged violations under multiple sections of the Assam Forest Regulations Act of 1891, links the summons to Jewel Ali.
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The case involves alleged breaches of sections 24, 25 (a), 25 (d), 25 (e), 25 (f), 33, 34, 35, 40, 41, and 49 of the stringent Assam Forest Regulations Act, 1891.
Official correspondence No. LP/ 16/2025/29-30 states, “There are reasonable grounds to question you to ascertain facts and circumstances about the above reference case,” and directs you to appear before the I/O of the case on 3rd May 2025 at Lekhapani Range Office by 11 am, warning that failure to do so will result in legal action.
According to sources with the forest department, around 260 hectares of land under the Tirap and Paharpur reserve forest under Lekhapani Range have been under encroachment for decades, allegedly by local businessmen.
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Allegedly, Mr. Ali has utilized around 166 hectares of forest land in the Paharpur area – predominantly inhabited by the Sema Naga community – by engaging the local tribal community, who recently claimed in a confrontation with the forest department that the land is not recorded in the land registry or in the cadastral system.
“Despite stringent warnings and administrative prohibitory orders in the area, a kingpin behind the scenes has continued anti-forest activities by pushing local people to the front to undo the forest department’s efforts,” said an official of the range office.
When questioned about the failures of the department in securing the forest land from the encroachers, the DFO TC Ranjith Ram IFS said that the authority has set up 4 best offices in all the vulnerable areas, including one in the Paharpur with 19 forest battalion to check the forest illegalities.
“Ironically, the resistance from the local residents to erecting a beat office with an armed battalion in the Paharpur area suggests to us that the encroachers are trying to thwart the government’s positive development in protecting the green cover,” said the DFO.
Reportedly, the government’s decision to rehabilitate 383 flood-affected families of Laika village of Tinsukia district here in the already earmarked Paharpur area of Lekhapani might have caused a sense of insecurity to the local population here.
“The demands of the local tribal people to call back the forest battalion from Paharpur RF, their threats of dire consequences to forest personnel (including engaging a militant group if needed), their obstructions during duty periods, and their assault on a battalion strongly suggest a motivated move by the capitalist to secure his business empire by using innocent people,” added the official.
‘Following the recent defeat of a local tea businessman in a court case claiming the encroached forest land , the department is now gearing up to evict all the forest land and keep the property of the government intact and secured , shared the official.
The forest department, in order to secure its jurisdiction, has already started the work of erecting mammoth concrete posts along the Assam-Arunachal borders using digital maps and asserting locations using GPS.
Meanwhile, according to official statistics around 5 percent of the total forest land under Digboi Forest Division has been under encroachment either through human habitation or unauthorised tea garden expansion trespassing the Reserve Forests.
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