In May 2017, eight villages in the Palamu Tiger Reserve in Jharkhand received letters from the forest department proposing to relocate them outside the reserve for expansion of the core area to facilitate tiger breeding. As a result, the villages that were earlier part of the buffer zone of the reserve will now fall within the core area.

To suggest that this was an urgent matter, the letter cited a Jharkhand High Court order of February 2017, which concerned a public interest litigation on the decreasing tiger numbers in Palamu. Of the eight villages, Kujurum, Latu, Pandra, Gopkhar, Gutwa, Bijaypur and Henar are located in Garu block in Palamu district, and Ramandag village is located in Barwadih block in Latehar district. According to media reports, the families proposed to be relocated have been offered INR 15 lakh as compensation, which includes the cost of land for construction of a house and cost of construction as well.

In August 2017, the residents of six villages in Garu block held a demonstration outside the office of the block development officer (BDO). They also wrote letters to the forest officer and the BDO, opposing the proposal to relocate them. They held more demonstrations in November and December where they also opposed the move to expand the tiger reserve.

According to media reports, Gopakhar village is home to the Nagesia tribe, classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group. The tribe was displaced in the 1950s when a reservoir and a residential school were built in the Netarhat hills.

Residents of all the eight villages depend on agriculture and forest produce for their livelihood. "Though the forest department says Kujurum and Latu residents want to move, we do not agree on this. We received news that Kujurum villagers refused to shift to Dubiyakhad between Daltonganj and Betla as the land there is rocky. There is a proposal to shift them to Mahuadanr block in Latehar, but there are already people living there," said Jerome Kujur, in an interview to Down To Earth in December 2018.

Kujur is the general secretary of Jan Sangharsh Samiti, a Jharkhand-based organisation fighting for people's livelihoods. There is immense pressure on two villages, Latu and Kujurum, to consent to the relocation, but the residents have refused.