‘We Are Not Encroachers, We Are Protectors’: 150 Jenu Kuruba Adivasis Resist Eviction in Karnataka’s Nagarahole Forest | Community Networks Against Protected Areas (CNAPA) stands in solidarity with the Jenu Kurubas

7 May 2025 | Nagarahole, Karnataka 

150 people from Jenu Kuruba tribe are being forcibly removed by the Karnataka Forest 

Department, State Police and State Tiger Protection Forces from their ancestral village, Karadikallu 

Hattur Kollehaadi, in Nagarahole, Karnataka. Around 120 paramilitary troops of the Forest 

Department, along with state police, were deployed on 6 May 2025 to forcibly evict the families, 

who had cordoned off the area and restricted media access. 

On 5 May 2025, the Assistant Conservator of Forest (ACF) along with forest guards and state police 

tried to stop tribe members from performing rituals and construction of sacred places on the 

pretext that their FRA claims have not yet been recognised. However, the Jenu Kurubas of 

Karadikallu argue that they have followed the due process of law and have filed for their Individual 

Forest Rights (IFR), Community Forest Rights (CFR) and Community Forest Resource Rights 

(CFRR) back in 2021 itself. 

“Forest department has been lying to the media saying our FRA claims have been rejected. In 

reality, it is the Forest Department that has violated due process ̌in which they are mandated to 

respond to filed FRA claims within a 3 month notice period, which they have failed to do”, 

members of the haadi mentioned in a press statement. Despite filing claims in 2021, submitting 

memorandums, raising the matter to senior authorities as well as a completed joint verification 

and completed GPS survey by Panchayat, Tribal Welfare, Revenue and Forest Departments, their 

rights remain yet to be recognised, they argue. 

Nagarahole Adivasi Jammapale Hakku Sthapana Samiti (NAJHSS) issued a statement responding 

to the event stating “We the Jenu Kuruba, Betta Kuruba, Yerava and Paniya Adivasi peoples have 

been living and residing in the Nagarahole forests since many generations, long before the Forest 

Department was formed. We have been taking care of the forests, wildlife and the biodiversity of 

the Nagarahole since time immemorial… We need to care of each other and live together. We will 

not be deterred by any force from asserting our rights to our forests, animals and peoples, who are 

all equals in our eyes.” 

JK Putti, a Jenu Kuruba woman leader and elder reiterates, “The deployment of hundreds of 

officials and paramilitary troops is being done with the sole intention to intimidate and threaten 

us. But we are not backing down or leaving our ancestral homelands this time.” 

“The Forest Rights Act does not give us rights, but affirms that we already have the rights to our 

forest land. Therefore, we will assert our rights and whichever authority wishes to dialogue with us, 

they will have to come here to Karadikallu and speak to us in our Gram Sabha” said JA Shivu, 

president of the Karadikallu Forest Rights Committee (FRC) and a leader of NAJHSS. 

Community Networks Against Protected Areas (CNAPA), a national coalition of indigenous peoples 

and forest-dwelling communities, Gram Sabha/Village Council federations, activists, journalists 

and academics from across India, stood unconditionally with the people of Karadikallu and 

Nagarahole and condemning attempts to intimidate, forcefully evict and desecrate the sacred 

spaces of the Jenu Kurubas by the Forest Department, its paramilitary troops and the state police. 

Pranab Doley, CNAPA leader and member of the Missing indigenous community of Kaziranga, 

Assam, said “National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has been violating the forest rights of all 

Adivasi or indigenous peoples across all forest regions of India and denying access to peoples’ 

fundamental human rights, charging them with false cases and treating people who live within 

and outside forest regions without dignity in the name of tiger conservation.” 

For further details, contact: 

JK Thimma- +91 9740664079 | President- NAJHSS, Member- Thundumundage Kolli Gaddehaadi FRC 

JA Shivu- +91 8197620535 | President- Karadikallu FRC, Leader- NAJHSS￾Rajan- +91 7751889711 | Member, CNAPA 

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