Man killed by tiger in UP's Pilibhit

Pilibhit (UP), Jan 10 A 33-year-old man was killed and dragged away by an adult male tiger to a nearby sugarcane field in Tanda Bijesi village of the district.

The incident took place under Neuria police limits.

Local forest officials said that the missing man's body was recovered from the cane field, half eaten by the big cat.

The corpse of the victim, Gokul Malik, was later sent for autopsy.

According to his family, Malik had gone for work to neighbouring Bangawan village in Uttarakhand. When he did not return home on Sunday, his family started looking for him.

Divisional forest officer of Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, Naveen Khandelwal, and wildlife division Sanjeev Kumar and police officers reached the spot to collect information.

A team of forest officials from Uttarakhand also visited the place.

Following the incident, forest officials have deployed three field teams to monitor the tiger's movement and the Wildlife Trust of India has installed four camera traps.

Officials said, "The tiger might have strayed from the Surai range and retreated to the forest. We are collecting more information about it. Pug marks were measured to be 13x13cm which indicates that it was an adult male tiger."

Chief conservator of forest (Bareilly zone), Lalit Verma, said, "The tiger might attack another villager again. We are trying to monitor the movement for the next 48 hours through camera traps, field units. If we find the big cat near some other village, we'll immediately seek permission from the chief wildlife warden to tranquilise and relocate it to another forest."