Adilabad: Asifabad district forest officer (DFO) Neeraj Kumar Tibrewal said that they had information that around 20-30 villagers had tried to take selfies with the tiger before it attacked a woman on Friday in Kagaznagar forest division.
He said, “the tiger got disturbed by the villagers' actions and went into the nearby cotton fields and attacked Morle Laxmi while she was picking cotton.” The incident occurred in Nazrulnagar, Kagaznagar mandal on November 29.
Speaking to the media, Tibrewal said that the tiger had attacked humans in self-defence in that incident, A day later it had attacked Rauthu Suresh around 100 metres inside the reserve forest boundary.
He said the forest staff was tracking the movement of the tiger and was in regular contact with forest officials from Maharashtra. Stating that the animal could be around 4-5 years, he said its age will be confirmed only after getting information from Maharashtra forest officials.
The forest staff is making all-out efforts to track movement of the tigers to avoid incidents of attacks on humans in the Kagaznagar forest division, he said.
The tiger, which killed Laxmi, was reportedly moving on the outskirts of Itikalpad in Sirpur (T) on the state borders till late Sunday night.
It moved to Areguda and Peddabanda in Sirpur (T) and could have entered Rajura taluq of Maharashtra.
Forest staff is creating awareness among the people about the importance of tigers and urging them to avoid causing harm to tigers moving in the area.
