Eviction of one million tribal people under the orders of Indian Apex court

India's supreme court has ordered nearly one million people to leave their homes in the forest after activists accused them of threatening wildlife.
More than a dozen states have been told to evict the people, who mainly belong to tribal communities, as they failed to prove ownership.
Human rights activists have slammed the ruling, likely to be enforced in coming weeks, as a 'death sentence for millions'.  It came as a petition accused the millions of people of encroaching illegally on protected areas and threatening wildlife through agriculture and forest clearance.
Aakar Patel, head of Amnesty International's India group, called it a 'body blow' for the rights of indigenous groups who are among the poorest in India.
'Forced evictions are explicitly prohibited under international human rights law,' he said.
And Survivor International called the ruling, likely to be enforced in coming weeks, a 'mass eviction in the name of conservation'.
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'This has the potential to be a death sentence for millions, and as usual, the conservation industry remains silent on human rights,' the rights group said in a Twitter message.
The court released its order on February 20 and said the evictions must be carried out within five months.

India's Forest Rights Act allows tribal groups to live on forest land they have occupied for three generations before 2005.The case was first brought to India's backlogged Supreme Court in 2009 to test the constitutional validity of the act.
The court's ruling this week ordered the eviction of families whose claims for occupancy had been rejected under the law.
But tribal groups say some lands protected by the act have been farmed for generations and should no longer be classified as forests.
The Forest Alliance activist group said the decision was part of a sustained attack by corporate and conservation interests against tribal groups.
'We will not be a mute spectator to the spectre of terror to be unleashed in the forest areas,' it said in a statement.

Ministry of tribal affairs secretary Deepak Khandekar said about 1.9 million claims have been upheld by state governments.
The Times of India newspaper reported the ministry will soon meet officials from 16 of 29 Indian states to discuss how to deal with the eviction issue.
Jitendra Vir Sharma, director of forestry and biodiversity at the New Delhi-based Energy and Resources Institute, said 'some of the claimants whose rights have been rejected have evidence, but could not produce due to lack of knowledge'.
Mr Sharma called for independent verification and said that any individuals whose rights have been compromised should get another chance to file claims of ownership.