A clash ensued between locals and police at Tangiya Basti, in Jeetpursimara Sub-metropolitan City of Bara district, on Friday morning after police arrested a local with illegal arms and ammunition along with wild animal parts.

After getting an anonymous tip, a team of 15 police personnel led by Police Inspector Ghanshyam Shrestha of the Nijgad Area Police Office went to arrest a 35-year-old man of Tangiya Basti named Sagar Lama at around 6 am. According to Shrestha, during the arrest they recovered a loaded musket, two bullet shells, around 200 grams of gunpowder, two teeth, three nails, and 13 whiskers of wild animals.

"After the arrest, when we tried to take Lama, who was in handcuffs, to the police station, a mob of around 200 to 300 people with sticks and stones attacked the police vehicle and helped Lama escape. Several police personnel were injured, and among them Assistant Sub-Inspector Kamal Bahadur Shahi and Assistant Inspector Balraj Giri were snatched by the mob and beaten up. We fired five rounds in the air to disperse the mob," said Shrestha.

The district police office has issued a BOLO (Be On the Lookout) for Lama, who is on the run, said Chief Superintendent of Police Hobindra Bogati of the District Police Office. "The seized animal parts have been confirmed to be from wild animals, and preparations are being made to send the parts for lab testing to identify what animals they belong to. Efforts are being made to nab Lama by sending his description to every law enforcement agency," said Bogati. "Lama is also a poaching suspect, who hunted wild animals in the national forest," he added.

Tangiya Basti is located in the Tamagadhi forest area, which is part of the national forest, and it is not unusual for the residents to keep homemade illegal arms and ammunition at their homes. The locals claim that they keep guns for self-protection from wild animals because the Division Forest Office does not provide them protection.

Haridev Kharel, ward chairman of Jeetpursimara-16, said that human-animal conflict in Tangiya Basti is a regular occurance in the rural municipality. Every couple of days, cattle and humans get attacked by wild animals, and sometimes the animals also enter people’s houses. "In the past ten days, 13 goats and some domesticated birds including chickens and geese were killed by a tiger. Among the animals was a goat belonging to Lama, the poaching suspect. Similarly, two and a half months ago, a middle-aged man was killed by an elephant," said Kharel.

"The Division Forest Office refuses to install wire fencing around Tangiya Basti unlike at the nearby Kakadi village because, according to officials, Tangiya Basti is a settlement built on encroached forest land. After not getting protection or compensation from the office for the losses caused by wild animals, the locals hunt wild animals illegally, and people like Lama are kind of good people for the locals," Kharel added.

According to Kharel, there are around 1,470 households in Tangiya Basti, with a population of around 7,000.

Clashes like the one on Friday between security personnel and locals keep happening in Tangiya Basti due to Human-animal conflicts.

Binod Singh, forest officer at the division Forest Office Bara, said that Tangiya Basti is an illegal settlement sitting on 531 hectares of national forest land. The encroachment started in fiscal year 1974–75. "At that time, a small tract of land was given to landless squatters for four years, but they later refused to move out. Since the area is inside the Tamagadhi Forest area of the national forest, there is no act or law to provide protection or compensation to the people living illegally in the national forest area," said Singh.

According to Singh, the division forest office provides protection by building wire fencing or walls only for the settlements outside and nearby the forest area. Similarly, compensation is provided for casualties, injuries, and property damage caused by wild animals in legitimate settlements.

"Every four or five days, locals of this settlement come to the office demanding compensation, but we turn them away as law does not allow any payment. The Tangiya Basti is notorious for poaching incidents and every time the authorities launch investigations, the locals turn out in large numbers in protest, preventing proper investigations," said Singh. "This settlement presents a significant challenge for the authorities in protecting wild animals of the national forest. This forest is connected to the Parsa National Park and the Chure and Mahabharat ranges and is home to tigers, rhinos, pangolins, and an important regional migratory corridor for wild elephants and other animals," Singh added.

Ward chair Kharel said that in order to stop human-animal conflicts, disputes, clashes, illegal hunting, and forest encroachment, the Tangiya Basti Settlement has to be relocated. "There was a plan in 1995 to relocate the settlement for the construction of Nijgadh Airport, but as the project failed to take off, the relocation plan was also aborted," said Kharel.

Laxmi Shah contributed reportingfrom Bara.