Tiger Dies in Kagaznagar Forests, Officials Rush to Find out How

Adilabad: A tiger has been reported to have died in the forest area between Dharigam and Sarikepalli villages in the Kagaznagar mandal in Komaram Bheem Asifabad district. Information about the death was received by forest department officials on Saturday evening following which they rushed to the spot to inquire into the incident.

While forest officials confirmed the death of a tiger, they said it was too early to determine the cause of the death. Senior forest and wildlife officials were reported to be on their way to Kagaznagar.

According to reliable sources a cattle kill incident took place four days ago in the same locality but nobody claimed the carcass. There were suspicions whether the tiger had died after consuming the rest of the cattle kill that may have been poisoned by local villagers.

Another version doing the rounds was that the tiger died in a territorial fight. There were also unconfirmed reports that the tiger could have died after being electrocuted because of illegally erected electrified fences by some villagers. Two other villages, Cheelapelli and Malini, are also in the vicinity of where the tiger death occurred.

The forest area around the four villages is becoming an increasingly preferred pathway for tigers migrating into Telggnana state from Maharashtra. It is not uncommon to find tigers also using the Komaram Bheem project’s canal that is not far from these villages.

Recently, a cattle grazer Gulab, 44, was injured in a tiger attack while he was grazing the cattle in the Nandiguda forest area not far from where the tiger death was reported on Saturday. The attack on Gulab had occurred on December 12. Gulab suffered injuries on his hands and stomach in the tiger attack when attempted to chase away the tiger with a log while it was attacking cattle and he alerted the villagers who rushed to the spot.