Farmer attacked; angry villagers surround tiger, cubs

BAREILLY: Amid concerted efforts to shift the tigers of Pilibhit’s Mala forest range away from human habitats, a fresh case of man-tiger conflict was reported from an adjoining village on Wednesday, leading to angry villagers surrounding the sugarcane fields where a tigress and her cubs were suspected to be hiding.

Rajendra Prasad, a 27-year-old farmer, was mauled by a tiger on Wednesday when he was working on his field in Basantapur village. Although Prasad survived with injuries, anxious villagers surrounded the field in a bid to put an end to the frequent attacks. They were stopped from harming the endangered animals by local forest officials.

M P Singh, the chief conservator of forest, Bareilly division, said the attack was only an accident. “It seems the tigress mauled the farmer for the safety of her cubs,” he said.

A team comprising forest officials and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) staffers has been trying to drag the tigress and her cubs into the deep forest area with the help of elephants, crackers and air-fire. Forest officials say there might also be a tiger lurking around.

“We have managed to bring these big cats to the fringes of the forest,” said Naresh Kumar Lodhi, project officer, WWF India. “We will continue our operation and will move them to the dense part of the forest.”

Two farmers were injured by tigers in two separate villages — Bhimsen and Marauri — adjoining the same forest range in February.