Talking to Express Newsline, District Superintendent of Police Shamsher Singh said search for the remaining five accused was on and they were likely to be arrested in a few days on the basis of information given by the arrested person.

The forest department officials accompanied by two policemen had gone to the village to seize teakwood, which was illegally stored by one of the villagers by illegal tree-felling in the nearby jungles.

Villagers opened fire on the jeep of forest department officials as well as police, when they were leaving the village. Though police and forest officials returned the fire, one of the bullets fired by the villagers hit constable Aretsingh Babarsinh Chauhan in the head.

According to the police, there are more than one dozen licensed weapons with the villagers, who used them for attack on forest officials and policemen. Though skirmishes between villagers of the area and forest department officials had been very common, it was the first time that such a serious incident had taken place.

Infuriated villagers also burnt a motorcycle belonging to a forest ranger.According to police sources, forest officials were not in the good books of the villagers because the former on pretext of confiscating teakwood also allegedly took away other types of wood from the poverty-stricken tribals.