CM announces withdrawal of forest cases against 4,000 Tharu tribals in Lakhimpur Kheri, many of whom were blind, disabled, elderly or even dead when the case was registered

Bareilly: CM of UP Yogi Adityanath announced on Saturday that forest cases registered against nearly 4,000 Tharu tribals will be withdrawn, bringing relief to poor villagers and their families who have been fighting the cases for more than a decade.This announcement made in Lakhimpur Kheri comes after months times of IndiaThe report, dated November 11, 2025, details how the forest department in 2012 had booked members of the Tharu community, including the blind, physically or mentally disabled, elderly villagers and even dead people.Without naming the Samajwadi Party, Yogi said that the previous government had given protection to mafias and habitual criminals while harassing the Tharu community during their struggle. He said, “The previous government used to promote mafias and habitual criminals in every city. They harassed the Tharu community by registering fake cases against them during their struggle, but now the BJP government will not allow this to happen.”“times of India had pointed out how many of those booked were poor and uneducated villagers, who continued to appear in court for years to stand trial for crimes they said they had never committed.Those named in the FIR also include Surdas Ram Bhajan, 40, blind since birth, who lives with his family in Saria Para, a Tharu village about 1.5 km from the India-Nepal border near the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve. “I have never even seen a forest,” he told TOI. “I walk with the help of my 70-year-old mother – she holds one end of the stick, and I hold the other. My younger brother, Rajjan, is mentally challenged and has been in chains since childhood, yet both of us were booked.“After the CM’s announcement, Surdas said that this decision has relieved the burden on his family for years. “I want to thank MLA Romi Sawhney and the CM for their gift,” he said. His mother Gulabu Devi said, “My sons never even went to the forest, but the department implicated them in false cases. But now we are happy that we are free.” 37 year old Rajjan was accused of illegal tree cutting.Another villager, Har Dayal Singh, 55, who suffers from chronic spine disease and cannot stand straight, was accused of climbing trees to destroy bird nests. “They say I’ve climbed a tree. I can barely stand,” he said after Saturday’s announcement. He had said that now he can live in peace without making rounds of the courts. In Sariya Para, where the population is around 1,500, at least 375 residents were booked under various provisions of the Indian Forest Act and Wildlife (Protection) Act.“I have been working on this for a long time but the TOI story gave a big boost to our effort and finally we are seeing the fruits of the efforts,” said Sahni, who represents Palia constituency.Tharu community members said their lives would now become easier, especially as the relief came with the recognition of their land rights. Tharu, an indigenous community of the Terai region Uttar PradeshUttarakhand, Bihar and southern Nepal have historically depended on farming and forest-related livelihoods. But after Dudhwa was declared a national park in 1977 and later a tiger reserve in 1988, many Tharu villages began to live within or around protected forest areas, limiting their traditional access to land and resources.Although the Forest Rights Act, 2006 was intended to recognize the rights of Scheduled Tribes and traditional forest dwellers over habitat, cultivation and forest use, many Tharu claims in Lakhimpur Kheri were either rejected or left pending.