Bengaluru: While the world continues to suffer the terrible consequences of senseless deforestation, around 25 tress were mercilessly cut down, just so a sole billboard could be more visible.
The trees that were literally axed, were located at the Iblur junction in Bengaluru, where they were obstructing the view of a real estate project called Sobha Dream Acres.
On the morning of May 10, a concerned citizen, software engineer Sunil Reddy, was on his way to work when he spotted the remains of the trees on a divider a little ways from the Suncity signal. Deciding to do something about it, he took photos of the mess and uploaded it on his various social media accounts. He, aided by some environmental activists then went to the BBMP to bring the matter to their notice.
The motive behind the removal of the trees was evident to Sunil as he noticed that the other trees near the site remained untouched. The BBMP officials, who were busy at that time owing to the elections, assured that action would be taken against those responsible on Monday, May 14.
DRFO said that an official was sent to the site for preliminary investigations and that they were currently trying to identify the agency responsible for erecting the hoarding. He also assured that an FIR would be filed soon.
In the recent past, many trees have fallen victims to “visibility of the billboards” in the city. Acid poisoning, hacking of branches and various other means have been used by advertising agencies to mutilate or remove the tress. As recently as April, eight tress were felled in Mahadevapura to make another billboard more visible. However, after the Lokayukta passed an order to enable the BBMP’s forest wing to crack down on such activities by taking down illegal hoardings and sometimes even cancelling the licence of the advertising agencies responsible, there has been a considerable decline in the number of such cases.
