Video nails foresters' lies: Expert

KOLKATA: Fateh Singh Rathore, India's pioneer tiger conservationist, has called the Ranthambore forest officials' conduct in Bhuripahadi utterly callous and cowardly. The former field director of the national park and now head of NGO Tiger Watch Foundation said the entire episode captured on film by Tiger Watch field biologist Dharmendra Khandal, helps expose the forest officers' lies. Incidentally, Khandal has been booked for blocking forest officials from doing their duty.

Rathore said the senior officers first buckled under pressure from angry villagers and ordered their junior, a forest ranger, to fire tranquillizer darts at the tiger even as he pleaded he was not authorized to do so. When the dart-hit tiger dug its canines into ranger Daulat Singh Shaktawat's face and plucked out his right eye, two officers just fled, said Rathore.

"By fleeing after issuing illegal orders, the officers not only displayed poor and cowardly leadership, they were callous to leave the tiger as it could have either been attacked or have attacked the villagers," he added.