KAILALI, March 7 -- Around 900 families forced to pay a 'fee' and contribute 5-15 days labor each

Locals of Kairali Rural Municipality, many wards of which share border with India, have complained that officials from the Indian forest department have been exploiting them for years. Families living in some of these villages have been forcefully made to work for free and even pay these officials.

"We have to work for them for free. It has been years," said a local of Kairali - 3, requesting anonymity. "If we refuse to work, we are beaten, threatened, tortured. They threaten us that they would frame us in big cases like poaching and smuggling and put us behind bars if we don't do what they say," he added.

While grazing cattle in the jungl...