After Avni, now tiger kills woman in Chandrapur

Chandrapur: NP NEWS 24 ONLINE – While the discussion about killing of tigress Avni is still on, a woman was killed by a tiger in Chandrapur district on Friday.

The deceased has been identified as Sakhubai Kasturi (55), a resident of Pendhari Makta in Sawali taluka. On Friday, the woman had gone for work in the field.

When she did not return home till late night. Her family members searched for her and found her mauled body on Saturday morning. The injuries marks on her body point to attack by tiger.

After Avni was shot dead on November 2, the villagers had sigh of relief but with fresh attack they are again in terrorised.

Avni is suspected to have killed 13 persons in Yavatmal and nearby areas.

Tigress Avni (T-1) and her two nine-month old cubs lived in Pandharkawada Forest in Yavatmal District, Maharashtra, India, a geography plagued by illegal cattle grazing, encroachment, and expansion of a large private cement factory. Rampant pesticide poisoning in several parts of Yavatmal district is also a huge environmental hazard. All of this have resulted in constant man-animal conflicts.

Maharashtra State alleged that Avni killed 13 humans in the past 2 years. Seven of the 13 killings had cattle next to the bodies of the human victims, which indicates that uncontrolled grazing could be a reason for the killings. 10 of the 13 killings happened on Saturday-Sunday, which cast a doubt why a “man-eater” would only decide to kill on weekends. DNA test was done only on 3 of the 13 victim bodies, and only ONE contained a tigress’ DNA!

Bowing to pressure from the District Administration, Forest Department, and the Ministry of Forest, Maharashtra State, the State Forest Department issued a fresh ‘shoot to kill’ order in the name of Avni. The order itself is very ambiguous, as it orders to “tranquilize and capture Avni” in one place, and “shoot to kill Avni if she can’t be captured” in another place. Courts have now ratified this order after three successive killings in August 2018, which strangely happened after a long gap of more than 6 months.

Avni or T1 was killed in Yavatmal on November 2.