UP woman killed by tiger, villagers protest

Pilibhit (Uttar Pradesh), March 22 (IANS) In a third such incident this year, a 50-year-old woman was mauled to death by a tiger while she was working in her field, about 150 metres from the core forest area of the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve (PTR).

The incident happened on Saturday. Earlier, last month, 60-year-old Phool Chand of Baijunagar village and Roop Lal, 45, of the Vidhipur village, were killed in tiger attacks and their bodies were found inside the Mala range.

The latest victim was identified as Ramoni Sarkar of the Mala village.

People working in adjoining fields said they rushed to her aid on hearing her cries for help. On seeing mob, the tiger left the woman and fled back into the forest.

The victim, who had sustained serious injuries in the neck died before she could be taken to the hospital.

The residents of the Mala village and neighbouring village Panchayats blocked traffic for several hours on Saturday protesting against the lack of security from big cats in the area.

The police had to deploy a force drawn from five police stations to control the crowd.

The protesters demanded installation of an electrified wire fencing along the entire stretch of the forest boundary to prevent wild animals from straying into human habitats.

The blockade was lifted after Divisional Forest Officer Naveen Khandelwal said steps would be taken to install solar wire fencing.

He also announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh for the kin of deceased.

IANS