Bhopal/Piparia, Feb 7 A 39-year-old man was killed in a suspected big cat attack in the Bankhedi territorial forest range under Piparia tehsil of Madhya Pradesh's Narmadapuram district, with forest officials leaning toward a tiger as the culprit pending post-mortem confirmation.
The victim, identified as Kamal Thakur, is a resident of Bari Devi village. His lifeless body was found some 100-meter way near Dam Mohalla Jhiria village, an old Dokrikheda hamlet.
“He was found dead among bushes approximately 100 meters from his home early Saturday morning,” a forest official told IANS. His body was in a dilapidated condition, indicating a violent encounter.
A local milkman spotted the remains and alerted the family, prompting immediate notification to forest authorities, the official further said.
Senior forest officials said that the attack likely occurred in the early hours of Saturday. "It might be a leopard also," one official noted cautiously, "only the post-mortem investigation report can conclusively reveal which wild animal was responsible."
However, forest teams have identified pug marks of both a tiger and a leopard in the vicinity, heightening concerns over big cat movement in the area.
Thakur worked as a cook in the army officers' mess in Pachmarhi and regularly visited his native village, preferably during weekends.
Villagers from Bari Devi and Jhiria had previously reported tiger sightings and movements to forest officials, signalling an ongoing human-wildlife conflict in this fringe forest zone.
“We have initiated a process to compensate the family with an amount of Rs 8 lakh, as an interim relief of Rs 25000 has been provided to his family members for performing the last rites, etc,” Vaibhav Bairagi, tehsildar Piparia, told IANS.
Authorities have launched an investigation, including examination of the site and collection of evidence from the pug marks. A post-mortem examination is underway to determine the exact cause and species involved.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor