E-Paper
Tiger on the prowl keeps Sonbhadra villages on their toes
Uttar Pradesh forest department has issued an alert in the border villages asking people not to venture into the forest areas or to their fields alone
The news of a tiger on the loose is keeping people in the Babhani area of Sonbhadra, a district that borders four states, up at nights ever since the big cat was first spotted reportedly on Thursday night.
With a few locals complaining of hearing the tiger’s roar and a video surfacing on social media showing the animal lurking on a road, the Uttar Pradesh forest department has issued an alert in the border villages asking people not to venture into the forest areas or to their fields alone.
Shyam Sundar Gond, Ramratan Singh and a few other residents of Shish Tola, one of the border villages in Sonbhadra, said they heard the tiger’s roar on Friday night. “We are scared and in panic ever since we came to know that a tiger has strayed into the region,” said Gond, adding several people have stopped taking their cattle into the forest for grazing. Mahuria, Navatola, and Sheeshtola are a few other border villages in the district.
People in Mahuli also claimed that they heard the tiger several times within an hour, and suspected that the big cat was probably hiding in the forest near the village.
Forest officials, who suspect that the tiger might have strayed into Sonbhadra from Chhattisgarh, responded to the locals’ complaints and conducted an initial survey of the region to find out more about the tiger. Though the team led by Jarha ranger Rajesh Singh didn’t find any pug marks, the ranger asked people to be alert even as some forest officials were deployed to keep a vigil on the forests bordering Chhattisgarh.
Babhani ranger Avadhnarayan Mishra also confirmed that no tiger pugmark was found under his jurisdiction.
Divisional forest officer of Raghunath Nagar (Chhattisgarh) VN Jha, however, said the tiger was spotted in the forests near Iknara village, which lies on the Chhattisgarh-UP border.
