A tiger killed a 50-year-old farmer in Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit district and devoured more than 80 per cent of the victim’s body, with remains found in two sugarcane fields.
The deceased farmer has been identified as Lalta Prasad.
The incident took place when Lalta and his brother Kailash Chandra had gone to the field to work but the latter returned home to retrieve some tools, leaving the victim alone.
When Kaislah returned, he could not find his brother.
“When I noticed tiger pugmarks on the soil, I immediately called for help following which fellow villagers arrived at the spot,” Kailash said.
“The following day, we found one partially eaten leg and part of a foot in an adjacent sugarcane field. Later, we found the rest of the half-eaten body parts — excluding the head, trachea and right arm — in another cane field located 250 metres away,” he added.
Kapil Kumar, range officer of Puranpur circle, said the site is approximately 1.5 km from the Mala forest range of the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve (PTR).
Station House Officer (SHO) Achal Kumar and the sub-divisional magistrate of Kalinagar circle rushed to the area to pacify the angry crowd that blocked a road.
A team from the Wildlife Trust of India, led by biologist Zibran Ali, installed 10 camera traps around the attack site on the direction of Naveen Khandelwal, the divisional forest officer of PTR.
Additionally, field forest teams from PTR and the forest and wildlife division have been deployed to monitor the tiger’s movements.
“The pugmarks, measuring 14×14 cm, indicate that it was a male adult tiger,” said Ali.
The DFO said: “The family of the deceased will receive a compensation of Rs 5 lakhs.”
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