Tiger kills man in tourist hotspot

JAIPUR: Tourist haven Ranthambore woke up to a grisly morning on Monday: a tiger had killed a man on the forest’s periphery. The tiger had gone for the man’s throat and shoulders.

So, is there a man-eater at large in Ranthambore which sees a steady stream of visitors, including VVIPs like Priyanka Gandhi and Sheila Dixit? Forest officials were quick to deny this, arguing that this was an accident.

“There are canine marks on the shoulder and throat of the man. Though the buttocks of the man appear to be eaten, we are ruling out that this was done by the tiger. He must have been eaten later by jackals which also roam in the area,” an official of the state forest department said.

But the rare occurrence has left forest officials worried. The last time a tiger killed a man in the state was in the early 1990s. This happened in Sariska, when a big cat mauled a sadhu.

This time, the tiger killed a 50-year-old villager Badri Kumar on Sunday morning. The body was recovered on Monday morning when his relatives began searching for him after he did not return home Sunday night.

A resident of Edna-Shayampura village on the periphery of the national park, Badri had gone looking for wood with his donkey near Darrah, on the edge of the forest. The donkey, too, was killed. The man’s body has been sent for post-mortem.
“The reason why we are ruling out that the buttocks of the person was eaten by the tiger is because if it had begun eating him, it would obviously have eaten a lot more,” the official added. They are now trying to identify the tiger from the pug marks.

“We have recovered a partially chopped tree in the forest area. It appears that after hacking the tree he was loading the wood on the donkey when the tiger attacked,” an official said.

At this Badri must have either raised an alarm or tried to pelt stones at the tiger. “Irritated by this, the tiger retaliated and attacked him,” the official added.

The body of Badri was recovered about 100 metres away from the body of the donkey. The donkey had been partially eaten by the tiger.

“Since no one was a witness to the incident most of what we are drawing up are inferences after visiting the area. Had the person run away he would not have been attacked by the tiger. We think it was a male tiger for the males are aggressive and attack when pelted with stones,” the official said.

But doesn’t a tiger which tastes human blood turn man-eater? Officials, however, ruled this out. “This killing was purely accidental. In the case of a man-eater, the tiger specially hunts human beings and kills them for food. But here the tiger did not damage the man’s body,” the official said.

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