RANCHI: In an unusual incident, a Royal Bengal Tiger, which entered a house at a village near state capita Ranchi on Wednesday morning, was locked inside it by the owner which was later rescued by the forest officials in the evening after more than 12 hours.
According to the house owner Purandar Mahto, the big cat entered his house early in the morning at 4:30 am just after he got up to take his goats out of his house. As he stepped out of his house to tie his goats, he came face-to-face with the tiger. “As soon as I got up to take the goats out of the house, a full-grown tiger jumped into my house. Out of fear, I also got inside the house and locked from inside. My children started shouting out of fear. Then I realized that we were in danger as both the tiger and my family was inside the house. Therefore, I gathered some courage and ushered my two daughters out of the house and locked the iron door behind us, trapping the predator inside,” said Purandar Mahto.
Then he started calling his people in the village and the forest officials following which people started gathering near his house to get a glimpse of the tiger trapped inside, he added. Forest officials rushed to rescue the tiger, but due to a large gathering it became difficult for them to execute the operation.
Meanwhile, looking at the threat to the life and property of the people living in the region, the district administration issued prohibitory orders within the radius of 200 meters of the house where the tiger had been locked by the house owner, Purandar Mahto. A team from Betla National Park was roped in to rescue the tiger with the help of the personnel of Birsa Biological Park in Ranchi.
According to forest officials, the area, located near the West Bengal border, occasionally sees movement of wildlife, but such an incident of locking a full-grown tiger inside the house by someone is rare. Ranchi DFO Shrikant informed that the tiger is completely safe. The best part of the rescue operation was that there was no need to tranquillize the tiger, he said. “Due to heavy crowd, the cage in which the tiger had been kept, was completely covered with plastic.
During shifting, it was given a mild dose of anesthesia so that he does not feel nervous,” said the DFO. Wild life experts informed that when a tiger is 14 to 18 months of age, hormonal changes start taking place in its body. In that situation, the tiger gets out of its habitat to establish its own territory. Many times, wandering tigers enter human habitats,” said a veterinarian Dr Ajay. The reason how and why this tiger entered the residential area will be known only after assessing its age, he added.
According to officials, the rescued tiger will be kept in Birsa Biological Park. It will undergo health checkup to see whether it is injured or not. If the health report comes out to be fine, it will be decided to which forest area it should be shifted to after talking to the National Tiger Conservation Authority.