“A group of at least 90 members was formed to track down the tiger’s whereabouts. We discovered the animal’s footprints and realized it had moved to a new area. However, to this day the tiger has not been arrested yet,” said Vijay Kumar, Madhya Pradesh state forest ranger.
After discovering traces of the man-eating tiger, the search team planned to use anesthesia and cage traps to capture the animal alive. Authorities are also preventing people from entering the forest to avoid similar accidents.
Villagers said that in March, they saw a tiger appearing near the village and informed local authorities, but no solution was offered by the authorities.
“My father’s body was badly damaged. The rangers blamed us for going into the forest. In March, a tiger appeared in our village, but the authorities did nothing.” No real measures to protect the villagers,” Deepak, the victim’s son-in-law, said.
Maniram Jatav was a relatively well-off man in the village and planned to hold a housewarming ceremony last weekend, but in the end, he was killed by a tiger attack the day before the ceremony.
The area at the edge of the forest where tigers appeared to attack and eat Mr. Jatav (Photo: Express).
Mr. Jatav often has the habit of going to the area near the edge of the forest to pick tendu leaves, a herb used to smoke like cigarettes. Although Jatav’s family members repeatedly discouraged him when they saw tigers appearing in the village, Jatav still kept the habit of picking leaves and did not expect that this would cause him to lose his life.
Neemkheda village is located within the Ratnapani Wildlife Sanctuary, spread over 825.90 square kilometers. This is the habitat of tigers and many other wild animals such as elephants, leopards, wild boars, antelopes…
There are very few cases of tigers attacking people in this area, so it is likely that the incident that happened to Mr. Jatav was just a coincidence. Animal experts believe that Mr. Jatav bent down to pick leaves, causing the tiger to mistake him for a herbivore and rush to attack and eat him.
The number of wild animal attacks and deaths is becoming increasingly common in India. In the northern region, people are mainly attacked by leopards and elephants, while the number of tiger attacks on people mainly occurs in the southern region of India.