All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) issued the following press statement on August 17, 2026:

The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) condemns the brutal murder of three marginal farmers from Thomayyapalya village, Hanur Taluk, Chamarajnagar district, by Karnataka forest department officials. Anthony Swamy (45), John Rose Peter (42), and Sebastian David Kumar (35) were shot dead by forest officials in the wee hours of Independence Day August 15 in the Chikkalluru Reserve Forest area, under the Holemuridatti patrol limits of the Shagya forest range in the Hanur wildlife zone. The fact that these three backward-caste marginal livestock farmers were killed on the country's 80th Independence Day is a disturbing testimonial to the colonial legacy inherited by the forest bureaucracy in the world’s largest democracy.

The official version of the Forest Department is that the victims were "poachers" and were killed in retaliatory fire after attacking forest officials. Certain internationally funded wildlife NGOs are also promoting this narrative. However, villagers, family members, and neighbours of the deceased reiterate that the poacher story is pure fiction manufactured by the Forest Department and the allied elite "conservation" lobby. According to family members, the victims entered the forest only to search for their grazing cows. The victims were accompanied by another relative, Mahimadan, who was also injured and admitted to a private hospital in Mysuru. Recent reports also indicate that he has gone missing from the hospital under suspicious circumstances.

An AIKS delegation led by National Joint Secretary D. Raveendran and Karnataka State Secretary T. Yashwantha visited the homes of the deceased farmers in Thomayyapalya and nearby villages. The local farmers and tribals informed the delegation that the Forest Department was spreading malicious lies about the deceased, pointing to several past instances of departmental excesses and illegal actions. The Karnataka Forest Department has faced numerous allegations of extrajudicial killings, excessive force, and target-framing in recent times, particularly across the border belts of Chamarajnagar, the Western Ghats, and the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary. Forest rights activists emphasize that the "conservation" lobby is manoeuvering to declare the Male Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary—a contiguous area to the encounter site—as a Tiger Reserve, in direct violation of the constitutional rights of traditional forest dwellers and small farmers, while severe losses of crop and livestock caused by escalating human-wildlife conflict remain unaddressed.

The Congress government, led by Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, bears the moral responsibility to come clean about this unfortunate incident. The AIKS is of the firm opinion that a judicial inquiry led by a sitting judge of the High Court should be ordered, rather than the ongoing inquiry by a junior revenue official from the same jurisdiction. Only a judicial inquiry can ensure compliance with the mandatory safeguards laid out by the Supreme Court for investigating extrajudicial killings. Furthermore, the AIKS demands Rs 1 crore in compensation for the families of the victims, as well as a government job for one member of each family. The AIKS also insists that the criminal-minded forest officers involved in this heinous crime be dismissed from service immediately and are made to face stringent punishment for their heinous crimes.