A 45-year-old farmer was allegedly killed by a tiger near Valmikinagar in Bihar’s West Champaran district on Saturday, triggering violent protests in which an angry mob attacked forest personnel and a policeman and damaged a forest department vehicle, officials said.
This is the third human casualty linked to man-animal conflict in the district in recent weeks.
Valmikinagar forest range officer Satyam Kumar said the victim, identified as Vijay Haldar, 45, a resident of Bangali Tola near Bherihari village under Valmikinagar police station, had gone to an agricultural field adjoining the forest area of Valmiki Tiger Reserve (VTR) when a tiger pounced on him, killing him on the spot.
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“Soon after the incident, a team of forest personnel reached the spot and recovered the body,” the range officer said, describing the incident as a result of the victim ignoring warnings issued by the forest department.
Soon after news of the farmer’s death spread, Bherihari Chowk turned into a scene of chaos as a large number of villagers gathered and blocked the Valmikinagar-Madanpur state highway, placing the body on the road in reaction to the recurring man-animal conflicts in the Valmiki Tiger Reserve (VTR). Tension mounted further as forest personnel and a police team arrived at the spot. However, what began as angry protest degenerated into mob violence after agitated villagers confronted the forest personnel and chased them amid shouts and commotion.
Video footage emerging from the spot showed the crowd chasing the forest personnel, with some villagers allegedly assaulting them. Forester Ashish Kumar and vanrakshi Kundan Kumar, besides a policeman were injured in the melee. For 20-minutes, the mob ran amok and targeted a forest department vehicle, overturning it and causing extensive damage. Normalcy returned only after Bagaha sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Chandani Kumari and SDPO Bhushan Nihar reached the spot with reinforcements and prevailed over the situation.
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Rising human-animal conflict
This is the latest incident adding to a growing list of man-animal conflict cases reported from the VTR in recent weeks.
While a 45-year-old woman, Umarawati Devi (45), wife of Ramayan Choudhary, was killed by a tiger near Naurangiys on July 31, an elderly farmer, Aklu Yadav, 60, succumbed to his injuried a day after he was attacked by a tiger near Madanpur on July 30. The recurring man-animal conflict in the reserve is not limited to tigers. In separate incidents in the Madanpur forest range, a crocodile claimed the life of a farmer and left a woman seriously injured recently, underscoring the growing threat posed by wildlife to people living along the forest fringes.
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VTR’s field director Gaurav Ojha attributed the man-animal conflict to the ongoing monsoon season. “Animals are on move due to water logging in a few pockets. We have been frequently alerting the villagers through miking and asking them to avoid moving towards forests or move in group, if required,” said Ojha.
