ANGUL: Tension prevailed in Satkoshia forest region as irate mob damaged police vehicle, blocked the national highway and held forest officials captive after tigress Sundari killed one villager at Tainsi and injured three others including a media man.
The tigress Sudari who was brought from Madhya Pradesh on June 28 and released into wild on August 17 last in a bid to increase the tiger population, had also killed a woman earlier on September 12 last.
Police said one Trinath Sahu (62) of village had gone to nullah one km away from his village for some work this morning.
The tigress Sundari which was in the jungle there since last evening lifted him to jungle and killed him.
Some villagers who were nearby raised alarm and the tigress left the body but attacked a TV journalist who was taking picture and two others injuring them badly.
After the incident the irate villagers beat up the tracking team and held some forest officials including the Assistant Conservator of forest kartik Behera captive.
Angul Superintendent of police M Mohapatra rushed to site along with police reinforcement to bring the situation under control but the angry villagers did not release the captive forest officials and demanded a compensation of Rs 50 lakh.
The villagers damaged some police vehicles and did not allow the body to be taken by the police for conducting post mortem.
They took the body to NH-55 and blocked the highway disrupting traffic between Sambalpur and Cuttack.
Additional chief conservator of forest Sudarshan Panda and Divisional Forest Officer V Kartik could not be available for comment.
However, some senior forest officials have earlier warned the villagers not to enter deep into the jungle in view of the movement of the tigress.
The villagers however, alleged that the tigress has become a man-eater and should be immediately withdrawn from the forest and sent back to its original habitat in Madhya Pradesh.
Besides the Tigress Sundari, a three-year-old male tiger Kanha tiger had also been released into the Satkoshia Tiger Reserve but the villagers claimed that the tiger has been well settled inside the Satkoshia reserve forest On the other hand the tigress has become violent as it failed to settle inside the Tiger reserve.
The Tigress, the villagers alleged had also killed at least three cattle inside the forest.