Day after it killed a local, tigress ‘Sundari’ to be sent back to MP reserve

Tigress Sundari was brought to Odisha’s Satkosia tiger reserve from the Bandhavgarh reserve in Madhya Pradesh.

A day after tigress Sundari, brought to Odisha’s Satkosia tiger reserve from the Bandhavgarh reserve in Madhya Pradesh under India’s first inter-state tiger relocation exercise, allegedly mauled a 45-year-old woman to death, the Odisha government on Thursday decided to send it back to its original abode.

Sundari was brought from Madhya Pradesh’s Bandhavgarh reserve. (HT Photo)

On Wednesday, the badly mauled body of Kailashi Sai, a resident of Hatibari village on the fringe of the Satkosia tiger reserve in Angul district, was found, triggering anger among locals who suspected the relocated tigress to have killed her.

As villagers set fire to a forest range office, several boats of forest department and a beat house in the tiger reserve and blocked traffic, the state acceded to the people’s demand to move the animal out of Satkosia. The incident has cast a shadow on the entire tiger relocation exercise.

“The forest department officials and the district administration held a meeting today and decided that the tigress would be sent back to Bandhavgarh within the next fortnight. The officials of Wildlife Institute of India and NTCA (National Tiger Conservation Authority) would make the necessary preparation for sending the tiger back. Since yesterday, the villagers were not agreeing to allow post-mortem of the woman and so there was little way out,” said Angul district collector Anil Samal.

The district administration also had to give Rs 20,000 for cremation of the woman before the angry villagers lifted the roadblock.