NILGIRIS: A 50-year-old woman died in a suspected tiger attack at Arakadu village in Udhagamandalam. The deceased was identified as G Anjalai, a resident of Perar.
Police said after sensing foul smell emanating from the bushes in a tea garden on Thursday afternoon, locals checked and found her body with entire flesh ripped off from the stomach area, suspected to be consumed by a carnivore. During investigation, police and forest staff found out that she had gone for tea-plucking work and had been missing for the last two days.
Forest department sources strongly suspect that the woman was attacked by a tiger as big cats have the habit of consuming human flesh, and it was unlikely to be a leopard. “At the moment, we cannot say for sure if a tiger killed the woman.
There was an incident in Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve (STR) where a leopard attacked a human and consumed flesh. We can confirm only after conducting thorough investigation, including postmortem,” said Field Director of MTR and Conservator of Forests (Nilgiris), R Kiruba Shankar.
Further, he said “We did not see pug marks since the area was bushy. We will be fixing 20 cameras in the tea garden and near the water point.”