Tiger Victims Paralegal-Aid Clinic

Overview
  • The third paralegal-aid clinic was conducted at Kumirmari Village Dakkhinpara Village, Sundarban
  • This clinic was the third in its ongoing series in Sundarbans focused on helping families of tiger victims.
  • It was attended by 41 persons each of them are part of the surviving family member of tiger victims
  • Among the issues discussed in the clinic, the notable ones are:
    •  Basic legal awareness;
    • Scope of West Bengal Scheme for Rehabilitation by Providing Employment Assistance, 2023 as it applies to them;
    • Preparation of possible plan of action in dealing with the immense obstacles faced by them while making their claims.
Background

Please follow the previous posts on the topic here and here.

Paralegal Clinic

The first day of the two day clinic was held in the primary school premises of Kumirmari village. It was attended by 23 persons of them 13 were “tiger widows”. The session started with the families of tiger victims sharing their experience in dealing with the administrative institutions namely, police officers, panchayat leaders and forest officials while making their claims for insurance for accidental deaths caused by wildlife attacks.

The surviving family members have a limited time to finish all the formalities required to file a claim for insurance, including a police report and death certificate. These two documents are notoriously difficult to get as a simple police report indicating unnatural death of the victim of wildlife attack is mired with red-tape.

The police practice in this regard is to get a directive from the forest department before giving the police report and the forest department is reluctant to declare that any death has occurred in the forest area by wildlife attacks. It is pertinent to mention that in many cases the bodies cannot be recovered as they are mauled by the wildlife and the only evidence of such deaths are eye-witness accounts.

Similar to the previous clinic the participants were given a leaflet containing the basic rights and correct procedures under law to help the families of victims understand the deviations done by the corrupt officials.

The West Bengal Rehabilitation by Providing Employment Assistance, 2023 is introduced on 25.05.2023. One of the categorical conditions to be entitled under the scheme is- when a person is a victim of human-animal conflict then their family member can apply under this scheme to seek employment from the government.

Evidently, the victims of wildlife attacks in Sundarbans are a major part of this category and since the Forest Department is the biggest administrative wing in Sundarbans employment under such scheme will also be provided by the same Forest Department. This creates a catch 22 scenario as the officials are generally reluctant in declaring the death of fisherfolk is due to human-animal conflict and they are mandated to give employment to the families of wildlife attack victims.

There is also an issue of Boat License in Sundarbans. These licenses are generally unobtainable and many fisherfolk do not possess the licenses, although there is no clear law that disqualifies them from obtaining compensation under the law. But, as per the experience of the families of victims, they are rebuked and shunned from appearing before the forest officials if they cannot show boat license. Hence, the people shudder from appearing before them.

The first day session concluded with the following action points and individual cases were dealt with on the second day by the experts of DISHA namely, Santanu Chakraborty and Atindriyo Chakraborty.

Action Points

  • To obtain the requisite documents i.e. police report, general diary, etc., from the police station at the earliest.
  • A local ad-hoc committee is formed by the villagers to assist the families with the formalities of obtaining documents.