MUMBAI: Nobody from forest department wanted to kill the tigress. All attempts were being made to capture her. However, bullets had to be fired to save lives of people in the team trying to capture her, Maharashtra forest minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said here on Sunday.
Earlier, while speaking to media at Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi had condemned Mungantiwar in strong words holding him responsible for the death of the tigress.
She also said that she should soon write to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis about the "utter lack of empathy for animals" and she will fight the case legally, criminally as well as politically. When asked about it, Mungantiwar said that the tigress was shot dead as a last resort when all attempts to tranquilize her failed and she attacked forest officials.
"Nobody in the forest department wanted to kill the tigress and hundreds of forest department officials were trying to capture her alive for the last three months. After Avni had killed 13 people in the recent past there was lot of unrest amongst farmers and tribals. All possible means were tried to capture the animal alive but it had to be shot down to save the lives of forest officials," he said.
Gandhi had raised questions about Maharashtra forest department's choice of Shafat Ali Khan to capture the tigress.
"He had killed three tigers, at least 10 leopards, few elephants and 300 wild boars in Chandrapur alone. He is a criminal known for supplying guns to anti-nationals and for a suspected case of murder in Hyderabad," she had said in one of her tweets. Incidentally, Mungantiwar hails from Chandrapur.