MYSURU: The clang of a school bell echoes through Hale Heggudilu, but not many students returned to their houses. Instead, children gathered in small clusters outside the school gate, watching a convoy of jeeps, police vans and private cars snaking into their village. The sight of white SUVs with beacon lights and khaki-clad men was unusual in this remote forest fringe village of Saragur taluk.
At the centre of the crowd lay the small house of Danda Nayaka alias Chowda Nayaka, a 48-year-old farmer and labourer who had been mauled to death by a tiger only hours earlier.
As politicians, forest officers arrived to console the family, the village stood with murmurs of disbelief. “Come home before dark,” parents called out. By the time Nayaka’s body was taken for postmortem, the narrow lanes of Hale Heggudilu had fallen silent. Not a single villager dared to step out.
This is not a scene at this particular village. Dread now stalks every village along the edge of Saragur taluk -- from Badagalapura to Bennegere, Kurnegala to Mullur. As dusk falls, doors are bolted, fields abandoned.
When fear becomes routine
The people of Saragur, once accustomed to living alongside wildlife, now live in terror. Four tiger attacks in 20 days have turned the region into a zone of panic. There is also fear of leopards and elephants entering the village.
“We have always seen elephants and even tigers from afar,” said Mahadevaiah, a resident of Hale Heggudilu. “But they never attacked humans. Now, three men have been killed within 20 days. We have stopped going to our fields at night,” he said.
This wave of attacks has exposed more than just human fear; it has laid bare the deep cracks in the state’s wildlife governance, political interference and conservation ethics.
Chain of deaths
The blood trail began on October 16, when Madegowda (48) of Badagalapura was mauled by a tiger. He survived, but remains under treatment in Mysuru. Ten days later, on October 26, Rajashekar, a farmer from Bennegere, was killed near Mullur. On October 31, Doddaningaiah (65) of Kurnegala was attacked while grazing cattle. And finally, on November 7, came Danda Nayaka’s death in Hale Heggudilu.
When Nayaka’s oxen returned home, the yoke ropes still tied to their necks, his wife Rukmini sensed something was wrong. She rushed to the field with neighbours, only to find blood on the soil. A gruesome trail led them to a pit where Nayaka’s body lay, partly eaten. Ironically, he had survived an elephant attack a few months ago. This time, fate didn’t spare him.
In the aftermath of all these attacks, the Karnataka forest department launched combing operations and a tiger-capture drive that experts describe as a panic operation. Within 20 days, five tigers including cubs, were caught but no one is sure if they are the ones responsible for the killings in the region.
Two cubs, separated from their mother during one such operation, have been shifted from Bennegere village to Bannerghatta Rescue and rehabilitation centre. Another one-and-a-half year old female tiger cub was rescued at Hosavindu village on November 5, while an eight-year-old tigress was captured on October 28 at Anjanapura village. In the latest operation, another tiger was captured on the night of November 8 -- a 10-12 year-old male tiger, which forest officials say is behind all these killings, but this can be confirmed only through various modes and guidelines set by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).
A hack job, say experts
Wildlife biologists have condemned the random captures, saying they violate NTCA protocol. “Had DNA samples been collected from the first kill in Badagalpura, we could have identified the actual tiger scientifically. Instead, they started catching every tiger in sight,” a retired wildlife officer said.
The blame, many say, lies in the appointment of officers at Bandipur’s Hediyala sub-division, which are done due to political pressure. Officers who had worked in Social Forestry and with no background in wildlife management, are posted to a tiger conflict hotspot. Even Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre was misled by his subordinates and instead of experienced hands, the department fielded rookies in the wild.
“Posting an officer without field experience when tiger movement is at its peak is reckless,” said a retired officer from Bandipur Tiger Reserve, on condition of anonymity. “Now after three lives are lost, the department has transferred officials,” he said in anger.
The man-eating tiger could still be at large, as there is no confirmation yet, while innocent tigers have been tranquillised, trapped and relocated.
Meanwhile, a turf war within the department has paralysed action. Insiders describe a war of attrition between honest and corrupt range forest officers. Bandipur Field Director S Prabhakaran, who has been transferred, was caught in the crossfire, a senior wildlife source revealed. “Some range officers are working sincerely, others are sabotaging operations for vested interests,” alleged a farmer leader in the village.
Illegal resorts and the quiet invasion
Behind the veneer of conservation lies another aberration -- the mushrooming of illegal resorts and homestays around Bandipur, Nugu and Kabini backwaters. “These so-called ‘eco-resorts’ or luxury resorts have fragmented tiger corridors and pushed animals deeper into human zones,” said advocate Ravi Kumar, who has filed multiple petitions against unauthorised resorts in Kabini under the ‘Save Kabini’ banner.
“When humans occupy buffer zones, tigers are forced to change their routes and conflict becomes inevitable,” he said.
Tourist vehicles, safaris and open campsites add to the disturbance. The forest, once a sanctuary, has turned into a stage for selfies and safaris.
Where are the wildlife vets?
The chaos has also exposed a chronic shortage of qualified veterinary officers in Karnataka’s wildlife division. Most veterinarians posted in tiger landscapes come from the animal husbandry department with little exposure to handling big cats.
“There should be a permanent cadre for wildlife veterinarians,” said a former NTCA advisor. “The Forest Minister made this announcement but it is gathering dust and will never see the light of day. Every tranquillisation operation is risky; one mistake can lead to loss of both human and animal life.”
Recently, a pregnant Indian gaur was killed in a botched operation at Bannerghatta. “This incident speaks volumes about the lack of professionalism and the secrecy maintained in the forest department,” the activist added.
Minister steps in
Following the series of attacks, Forest Minister Eshwar B Khandre suspended safari operations in Bandipur and Nagarahole until further notice. “These incidents are deeply distressing,” he said in a written directive to the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests.
Khandre also halted trekking in vulnerable zones and directed all staff, from vehicle drivers to forest guards, to join the search operations. An 8-point action plan was drawn up, including deployment of 50 additional field staff for 15 days around Saragur. But villagers say the extra personnel have made little difference. “They come in the morning, take photos, and leave before dusk,” said an angry farmer in Bennegere. “Who will protect us in the night?”
For families like Nayaka’s, life will never be the same. His widow, Rukmini, now faces the prospect of raising two children alone. Compensation has been promised, but life?
NTCA SOPs, protocols violated?
In most of the operations that took place in the past month, the forest department allegedly failed to follow rigorous protocol and standard operating procedures laid down by the NTCA.
During the first operation to capture an elusive tiger on October 16 at Badagalapura, while it’s mandatory to announce Section 144 in the region, a 300-400-strong crowd interfered with the operations and turned it into a travesty. An injured person had pelted stones on the tigress and three cubs. With a tiger suspected to have killed a human, such operations are necessary.
Though identification protocol suggests conducting DNA analysis, gathering pug mark and stripe pattern data to identify the animal, forest officials failed to follow this integrated approach. It could be either due to pressure or failure of the veterinary expert in the team, but it led to failure in human-wildlife conflict management.
Forest officials in the region are tight-lipped before the media, and have neither issued press releases or held media briefings, thereby failing to sensitise villagers in the region through the media or are hiding facts from media houses.
Demand for relocation
“If the government gives us alternate land, we will move out,” said Mahadevaiah’s wife. “We cannot live like prisoners.”
In Hale Heggudilu, fear reigns. Most villagers are daily-wage labourers or small farmers earning Rs 300-400 a day. They rely on corn, ragi and minor forest produce. “There is no question of working late anymore,” said Danda Nayaka’s neighbour, holding her child close. “Once the sun sets, we shut the doors and wait till morning. We can’t even send the men to guard the fields.”
Alcohol has become both a comfort and a curse in these parts. “After dusk, men drink to forget fear but this also leads to negligence as some wander out drunk and fall prey to wild animals,” said a village leader.
Villagers say that earlier, they would let cattle graze freely in forest fringes, losing a few to predators each year. But strict forest department orders prohibit this practice. “Now that even livestock are confined, tigers have no easy prey so they turn to humans,” said Mahadevaiah.
A larger question at the heart of this tragedy raises a fundamental question: How does a state known for its tiger reserves lose both lives and credibility so fast?
Bandipur, once a pride, is now a symbol of chaos. Conservationists point to a dangerous trend, where political interference, administrative inexperience and human greed have diluted the scientific foundation of tiger management.
Meanwhile, farmers, labourers and tribals on the fringes continue to live between two dangers: the wild outside and neglect inside. It is time, say conservationists, to stop the anti-wildlife frenzy sweeping the region, before the fear of the tiger becomes the death of coexistence itself.