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Uttarakhand forest official booked after tiger killed in firing
A video was widely circulated on social media that purportedly showed two shots being fired from a vehicle at the tigress in the Marchula market area in Uttarakhand’s Almora district, triggering outrage on social media
An Uttarakhand forest official has been booked under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 as the Corbett Tiger Reserve administration on Wednesday admitted that the tigress who entered the Marchula market in Almora district on Monday evening was killed in a firing by him, officials said.
The forest guard of Mandal range of Corbett Tiger Reserve, Dheeraj Singh had fired two rounds on the ground using a 12-bore gun to scare away the big cat but pellets of one round got hit in the right thigh of the animal, the officials said. On the basis of prima facie evidence, the forest official has also been attached to Plain Range Office, Sendhikhal of the Kalagarh Tiger Reserve.
According to officials, the tigress had turned violent posing a threat to the life of locals in the densely populated area and a forester had initially fired 9 rounds into the air using a 315 bore service rifle to scare away the animal towards the forest area but the animal tried to enter the houses and shops repeatedly.
Dheeraj Pandey, director, CTR, said, “Countless people were standing on their terrace, the forest team couldn’t fire more shots into the air. To ensure the safety of humans and scare away the animal from the populated area, the forest official fired two rounds on the ground but pellets of one round got hit in the right thigh of the animal leading to the animal’s death.”
The tigress, aged 8 to 10 years old, had entered the Marchula market area in the buffer zone of the tiger reserve on Monday night around 9.15pm and upon receiving an alert, the forest department’s team of Mandal range had reached the area. The forest department had been on the alert and patrolling the area after the repeated sighting of the big cat in the area in the past few days.
Sameer Sinha, chief wildlife warden, Uttarakhand has asked the concerned officials to submit a primary report in two days.
On his instructions, the divisional forest officer (DFO), Kalagarh division has appointed sub-divisional forest officer, Sonanadi, sub-division Harish Negi to lead the probe into the matter.
Meanwhile, the postmortem of the tigress, conducted on Tuesday by a team of veterinary doctors, also confirmed that the animal died of bullet injuries resulting in excessive bleeding.
A porcupine quill was also found penetrated in the animal’s liver and it had damaged the organ badly, the report said.
The stomach and intestine of the animal were empty and the lungs were also damaged, the autopsy added.
On Tuesday, a video was widely circulated on social media that purportedly showed two shots being fired from a vehicle at the tigress in the Marchula market area. The incident triggered an outrage on social media, with animal lovers and social media users condemning the incident, asking why the forest department didn’t make efforts to rather tranquillise the animal.
The video purportedly showed a white four-wheeler with the barrel of a long gun coming out of its window and pointing toward the tigress. The tigress then charged toward the vehicle before two shots were fired at the animal amid shouts of “maaro, maaro” (kill, kill) in the background, the purported video showed. HT could not independently verify the veracity of the video.
