Rainforest Club Tamenglong condemns
Source: The Sangai Express
Tamenglong, February 01 2024:
Rainforest Club Tamenglong strongly condemned the assault on its advisor Nehemiah Panmei who is the former Wildlife Warden of Tamenglong on January 28 at Taijijang village, Tousem Sub-Division in Tamenglong district by the villagers.
He was a member of the team that headed to Taijijang village for Hands-on training in the field for research and study on Hornbill conservation, said a press statement by Rainforest Club.
The team consisted of representatives of Rainforest Club Tamenglong, Tamenglong Forest Division, Wildlife Explorers, Manipur and Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) Mumbai.
Apart from the physical assault, the villagers held the team for more than two hours in their custody and made to sign some documents and images from phones and cameras of wildlife photographers were deleted, said the statement.
Condemning such cowardly acts, Rainforest Club demanded that the culprits involved should be booked as per law.
The culprits should be booked for obstructing Government officials from performing their duties, it added.
'If such an unruly act is left unattended, it will be difficult to continue the work on wildlife conservation in the days to come', said the statement.
The club also informed that, 'Nehemiah Panmei sustained critical injury due to continuous blows from behind on both his left and right ear and right eardrum was ruptured' .
'With such intimidation, threats and physical assault by a group in the jungle, it was an attempt on the life of our advisor as they repeatedly hit him on the head', it said.