By IANS,
Lucknow : A man-eating tiger that has been on the prowl for over a month and killed five people in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur district will be shot dead, a forest official said Saturday.
“We have got permission from the state government to kill the tiger, which has claimed five lives,” Shailesh Prasad, director of the Dudhwa National Park, told IANS on phone.
Dudhwa, the country’s second largest tiger reserve, has 106 tigers as per the official census undertaken last year. The man-eater strayed out of the sanctuary limits and has been on the prowl in human habitations.
According to forest officials, the tiger is now hiding in the sugarcane fields of Kaanp-Tanda village, adjoining the sanctuary.
The tiger claimed its first victim, a 16-year-old boy, when he was working in a sugarcane field Jan 4. The big cat’s latest prey was a 55-year-old man, who was killed Feb 19.
The government allowed the killing of the tiger after hundreds of villagers threatened to attack the forest officials for failing to trap the animal.
A group of villagers had also snatched the rifles of some forest officials who were on a combing operation Thursday.