Forest Officials deny their role in pushing a tempo off a cliff during an anti-encroachment drive

Kathmandu — Forest officials in Nepal’s Kailali district have issued a collective denial after a viral video showed government employees deliberately pushing a vehicle off a cliff during an anti-encroachment operation.

In a statement on Sunday, 21 employees of the Divisional Forest Office insisted that the vehicle was not intentionally pushed into the ravine. Instead, they claimed that the abandoned vehicle lost balance and accidentally fell while officials were attempting to move it.

“The scrap tempo became unstable during efforts to remove it. It accidentally plunged off the cliff.”

The explanation has drawn widespread criticism because the video circulating on social media appears to show several officials deliberately pushing the vehicle toward the edge before it falls.

The incident occurred on Friday along the Gaimare road section within the Godavari Community Forest in Godavari Municipality-4, Kailali. Forest authorities were carrying out an operation to remove what they described as illegal encroachments on public forest land. Among the structures targeted was a broken tempo that had been converted into a roadside shop.

Seeking to justify their actions, the officials repeatedly described the vehicle as “scrap,” an “unstable skeleton,” and a non-functional structure that could not be moved away otherwise.

The tempo belongs to 44-year-old Dhanadevi Dhami of Baspani in Godavari Municipality-4. Dhami says the vehicle has been the sole basis of her livelihood. She earned her living by running a small business from it after her son, who works in Bengaluru, bought it for her.

Paying taxes to the state, she says, did not protect her from losing the very asset on which her survival depended.