E-Paper
Uttarakhand man enters porcupine burrow to hunt, dies
Jiwan Ram had entered a porcupine burrow to hunt but died inside.
A case of a man dying in a porcupine burrow after he got stuck in it, has come to light in a remote forest area of Uttarakhand.
The incident occurred in Kanda area of Bageshwar district where a man entered a burrow for hunting porcupine but got stuck in it and lost his life. His body was recovered after three days of efforts by police and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) on Saturday evening, an official said.
“It took us three days to recover the deceased’s body since he had entered more than 30-meter deep into the burrow. We pressed in JCB to dig the burrow since it is rocky and as such it took time. Finally, we recovered the body on Saturday noon,” said Mainpal Singh, tehsildar, Kanda Bageshwar.
Five residents of Danuthal village of Kanda tehsil, 45 km from Bageshwar district headquarters, had gone to the forest area on Wednesday for hunting a porcupine. They lit grass to smoke it out from the deep burrow and covered it with a stone, villagers said.
Next morning, on Thursday they returned to the spot and one of them crawled into the burrow to recover the porcupine but didn’t come out. His two companions-- Harish Ram and Ramesh Ram—too, entered the burrow to check but got stuck following which, the villagers pulled them out.
When they couldn’t reach the first person who had entered the burrow, the villagers informed the local administration, following which police and SDRF teams rushed to the spot. No recovery could be made on Thursday and even on Friday when a JCB was first pressed into service to dig the rocky terrain.
On Saturday, search operation resumed and finally around noontime, the man’s body was recovered. He was identified as Jiwan Ram, 42, of Danuthal village.
“Police have sent deceased’s body to Bageshwar for post mortem and authorities have been informed about the incident,” said tehsildar .
“Danuthal is a remote area of the Bageshwar and its villagers are poor and have no livelihood to earn. Most of them are daily wager, We are writing to administration for financial help to deceased’s family,” said Pankaj Dasila, a social activist of Kanda.
