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Journalism of Courage
As the man-eating tigress of Ralegaon elusive, the Maharashtra forest department has decided to call back on the sharpshooter it had hired from Hyderabad.
“We have decided to call back sharpshooter Shafat Ali Khan from Hyderabad and have issued a letter for the same,” Principal Chief Conservator of Forest A K Mishra said. Besides the tigress, her two cubs are also yet to be traced, the official added.
Khan was withdrawn from the operation last month following protests by wildlife activists. The sharpshooter had said that it was not possible to tranquilize the tigress under the prevailing circumstances and that it will have to be shot dead.
Meanwhile, the forest department has shifted its base camp from Savarkheda to Sarati village in Ralegaon tehsil. When Indian Express travelled the stretch from Sonurli on National Highway 7 to Ralegaon via the base camp, the team found the villagers engrossed in their daily work despite warnings by the forest department against the tigress. The animal is known to have attacked at least five persons in the area since November last year, three of them in August this year.
Shankar Atram, 65, from Savarkheda village said he isn’t afraid to walk alone to his cotton farm, two kilometres away. “We must go to the farm daily as the crop is ready to be harvested. Despite the warning, women labourers continue to come and work in the farm. Pointing to a walkway between two farms, Atram said, “My son once saw the tigress with her two cubs there.”
Dnyaneshwar Urkude, also from Savarkheda, echoes the same inevitability.
A little ahead towards a camp, 16-year-old Anil Baban Meshram was seen herding his sheep back to his village in Waradh. “I had to bring the sheep out for grazing since my father is not here but I did not go too far,” he said when informed that officials have warned of tigress attack.
Deepak Akkalwar of Warad said, “I have seen the tigress thrice and my farm is closest to the forest and adjacent to the nullah where she is known to have walked frequently. The last time I saw her was 15 days ago.” He added, “People have stopped going to the farms and have left their crops. More, the state electricity board tends to provide power at night when we can’t perform any operations. When requested, they asked us to approach top officials.”
Akkalwar also accused forest officials of not doing enough to nab the man-eater.
Manohar Raut from Loni said, “It is alright for the forest department to ask us to stay indoors but we need to earn our wages.”
The Ralegaon tehsil of Yavatmal district is known for growing cotton, soya bean and arhar. In villages close to the forest, people complained in similar tones about agriculture taking a hit due to fear over the presence of a tigress.
At the Sarati base camp, the five elephants pressed into combing operations. The jumbos were withdrawn after one of them tried to free itself and killed a woman a couple of days ago. The elephant was sent back to Tadoba tiger reserve. The remaining four tuskers had accompanied an expert from Madhya Pradesh but the duo returned to their state after the mishap.
Till Shafat Ali Khan returns, the forest department teams will continue in their efforts to capture or shoot the tigress using tranquilizers or with the help of the four sharpshooters provided by the police department.
A Pune-based Lightening Drone India Company hired by the forest department to conduct search flights at night, through thermal drones capable of capturing animal movements, is working round the clock to nab the tigress. “We have performed such exercises earlier too. Each flight is of fifteen minutes and the drone has to be relaunched after changing the batteries. We fly them several times at night in a grid fashion,” Imran Pathan, head of the drone operations said.
A young tigress, believed to be one of the four sub-adult cubs of the man-eating tigress, is allegedly camping on the premises of Chandrapur Super Thermal Power Station and has created panic in the Hinganghat tehsil of Wardha district.
The young one was spotted two days ago by several passers-by, close to the toll booth at Wadner. A Wardha forest department team has been set up to track her movements. In the absence of forests, villagers fear the possibility of the tigress wandering into the farms.
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