BHOPAL: A male tiger, which killed a youth in Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh on Friday afternoon, was successfully tracked and sedated 22 hours later in the jungles of the same district, also known as the land of the Jungle Book’s Mowgli.
The operation, aided by three patrolling elephants of the Pench Tiger Reserve, started at around 9 am. “The tiger was spotted at around 11.30 am in the forests located around 15 km from the Bawanthadi village, where it had killed the 18-year-old Sumit Pandre on Friday. Subsequently, the big cat was sedated using a tranquilizer dart,” the Pench Tiger Reserve’s deputy director Rajnish Singh told TNIE.
The male tiger aged around five had been active in the buffer zone of the Pench Tiger Reserve and the adjoining territorial forests since November 2023. It covered a long range of 150-200 square km.
The tiger which originated from Lalbarra in Balaghat district – around 60 km from the dense forests of Seoni district and the Pench Tiger Reserve – had not just killed the 18-year-old youth in Bawanthadi village on Friday, but also killed another man in similar fashion around the same village seven months ago.
The same tiger had also charged forest department staff and villagers in the tiger reserve’s buffer zone multiple times, owing to which there was a threat of it attacking again.
Both the men killed by the tiger -- on November 30, 2024 and June 20, 2025 -- had gone to graze cattle in the jungles.
After the latest killing, angry villagers had blocked National Highway 44. Owing to the road blockade, which continued till late in the evening, long queues of vehicles were witnessed on both sides of the road.