Lucknow: In a disturbing two-minute video from Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit district, a tigress was beaten to death with sticks by villagers.
The matter came to the fore after the video went viral on social media. The village is close to the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, about 240 km from state capital Lucknow. The mobile video, shot by a resident of the Mataina village, captures the assault by the villagers and even has a background commentary by a witness who says they are assaulting the tigress because she had attacked and injured a villager in the morning.
The tigress was about 6 years old and she died of broken ribs and injuries to her body. The tigress was cremated after a post mortem. Local forest officials have registered an FIR against 31 identified villagers for the incident.
A forest department team reached the spot right after the assault but angry villagers did not let the tigress be taken to hospital, till she died.
A magisterial inquiry will probe whether sincere efforts were actually made at the spot by forest officials to rescue and save the life of injured tigress. The Pilibhit district and Pilibhit Tiger Reserve have witnessed deaths of as many as 16 tigers and 3 leopards within the jungle and its surroundings since 2012, IANS reported.
Most of the deaths were caused by poisoning, snaring, affliction with contagious ailments like canine distemper, while only a few were due to infighting.