Villagers kill Royal Bengal tigress, chop off its body parts in Assam

Forest officials said the tigress had strayed out of the Kaziranga National Park and moved along the southern bank of river Brahmaputra to reach the village on a sandbar.

Villagers in Bangmara area of eastern Assam’s Jorhat district killed an adult Royal Bengal tigress and chopped off its body parts on Thursday.

The mutilated carcass of the tigress that was killed by villagers in Jorhat. (HT Photo)

Forest officials said the tigress had strayed out of the Kaziranga National Park and moved along the southern bank of river Brahmaputra to reach the village on a sandbar.

“The tigress, injured by the villagers with sharp weapons, had taken shelter in a paddy field. The villagers threatened to harm us if we tried to save the striped cat. We were helpless as they surrounded and killed the animal,” a district forest officer said.

He added that the villagers chopped off the tail, nails and other body parts of the tigress.

Forest minister Pramila Rani Brahma, who was across the river to inspect the death of an elephant in a pit at an under-construction Patanjali herbal park, said, “I will take strict action against the officials who failed to rescue the tigress.”

Human-leopard conflicts are quite frequent across Assam, but rarely do striped tigers confront humans, officials said.

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