3 injured in tiger attack in Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit

Two tigers attacked six people, injuring three of them, on Friday in two separate areas in Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit district, officials said on Saturday.

Ram Bahadur, Ujagar Singh and Lalta Prasad were attacked and injured by a tiger in Lalpur village of the district, which is under the Mala Range of the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve.

Villagers recorded the video of the attack which went viral on social media. In the video, the tiger can be seen climbing the forest department’s tractor and trying to attack the people.

“Three persons have suffered injuries in the attack. The tiger was spotted sitting near our house in the morning and while people were passing by the tiger attacked them. The police came here after we informed them about the incident but the forest department officials came after four hours,” Milap Singh, Lalpur village’s head, said.

Singh and police officials who reached the site of the incident sent the injured villagers to the district hospital and informed the forest department.

When the team of the forest department team reached the spot to capture the big cat by tracing his location, the angry tiger climbed on its tractor and attacked the officials. No one was injured.

The tiger came down from the tractor as it saw the crowd and ran towards the forest. Top officials of the forest department are trying to track the animal in a bid to capture it.

“The forest officials did not pay heed to our request and left. No fences has been constructed to confine carnivores within national parks and therefore the wild animals enter in the residential areas and attack people,” Singh said.

“It’s risky for the children and labourers working in the field. The forest officials are not working in this direction of constructing fences,” he added.

Reports said Gurpreet Singh and Hardeep Singh, both brothers and resident of Zari Village in Gajraula, were also attacked by a tiger. They were on a motorcycle when a tiger lurking in the nearby field lunged at them on the link road near Shiv Nagar Marg.

The two, however, escaped unhurt.

Before this, three attacks were reported in the Kheri region which houses the Dudhwa National Park in April.

Officials of the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve say the sugarcane, wheat and rice fields happen to serve as breeding territories and are stocked with livestock and deer which make tigers venture out into the fields for an easy kill.

Humans also enter the tiger reserve to gather fodder and fuelwood, they said making them vulnerable to such attacks.

The Pilibhit Tiger Reserve is among the wildlife habitats in India that has reported the highest number of human casualties. Twenty-seven people have been killed by tigers since November 2016 in and around the 730 square kilometre reserve, home to up to 70 tigers.

The tiger population inside the horseshoe-shaped reserve is at the saturation level, prompting 10 of the big cats to make their home in the sugarcane fields in the vicinity.

The PTR has now mooted a proposal, which is awaiting the government’s nod, to relocate 10 tigers that have made the sugarcane fields outside the reserve their home.