By IANS
Lucknow : A man-eating tiger prowling in sugarcane fields of Uttar Pradesh’s Terai belt has claimed five human lives in three months. The body of a middle-aged man was recovered in Bahraich district Wednesday.
“The mauled body of the victim, identified as Imran, was discovered close to the railway tracks Wednesday evening and it appeared from the injury marks and the splattered blood that the kill was made not very long ago,” the state’s chief wildlife conservator D.N.S. Suman said Thursday.
It is speculated that the tiger was compelled to abandon the body near the tracks in Ghurepurwa village under the Sujauli police circle due to the sudden arrival of a train.
Some wildlife experts believe all five killings have been made by the same animal, which could be a tiger or a leopard.
The killings began in January, when a woman and a 14-year-old boy were killed in separate incidents in Dhaurara range of Lakhimpur-Kheri district.
The next month an eight-year-old boy was attacked and killed by a big cat in Sujauli area of Bahraich district, which adjoins Lakhimpur-Kheri district.
In March, a 27-year-old man was done to death by a tiger in Mananda village in Lakhimpur-Kheri.
“Our forest guards are on the job to track down the man-eater. We will take all necessary steps to either trap or eliminate the big cat,” said the official.