2-year-old tigress beaten to death by villagers in UP after it attacks 2 persons
People prevented forest and district authorities from entering Phulwariya village to rescue the tigress for several hours, officials said
LAKHIMPUR KHERI: A two-year-old tigress was beaten to death with sticks by villagers in Dudhwa buffer zone on Wednesday morning after it entered the village in Lakhimpur Kheri district and attacked two persons.
Officials said the tigress was still alive when a team of forest officials and district authorities reached the area but angry villagers prevented them from entering the village to rescue the tigress. The villagers were finally persuaded to step back but the tigress had succumbed to injuries by then.
“The big cat, which turned out to be a tigress of around two years, had sneaked into the village and attacked a calf and a few persons in a hutment… The villagers later gheraoed the tigress and killed her,” Dudhwa Tiger Reserve (DTR) field director H Rajamohan, told HT.
Phulwariya village in Pallia Kotwali area is located just a few kilometres from the tiger reserve.
Rajamohan added that a case was registered and an investigation set up to probe the case.
Villagers said an elderly farmer Jyoti Prasad and a woman Ramrani who were attacked by the tigress early in the morning were being treated for their injuries at a district hospital.
Dudhwa Tiger Reserve Division deputy director Rengaraju T said the postmortem examination would be conducted by a panel of veterinary doctors as per guidelines of the National Tiger Conservation Authority to ascertain the exact cause of death.
A preliminary examination of the carcass by Dudhwa veterinary expert Dr Daya Shankar spotted “severe injuries on the head of the tigress”.
The Dudhwa Tiger Reserve consists of Dudhwa National Park, Kishanpur and Katerniaghat Wildlife Sanctuaries, along with forests of North Kheri, South Kheri and Shahjahanpur Forest Divisions. In all, the core area and the buffer zone is spread across 2,201 sq km.
On Nov 4, 2018, a tigress was run over by a tractor and beaten to death with sticks after it killed two persons in Chaltua village in the Kishanpur sanctuary area of the tiger reserve.
