Woman killed in tiger attack in Telangana's Asifabad district

A young woman was mauled to death by a tiger in Telangana's Kumaram Bheem Asifabad district on Friday.

The incident occurred near Gannaram village in Kagaznagar mandal around 7.30 a.m. The deceased was identified as Morle Lakshmi (21), who was working in cotton fields.

The tiger escaped into the forest after other workers in the fields raised an alarm.

The villagers carried the woman's body to the forest office in Kagaznagar where they staged a sit-in, demanding justice for the deceased's family.

The villagers demanded that the Forest Department initiate immediate measures to catch the tigers and provide them protection.

The undivided Adilabad district has been witnessing the tigers' movement for the last few days. Officials say the big cats are coming to Telangana from the Tadoba forest of neighbouring Maharashtra.

A tiger killed a calf grazing in the forests of Sonapur on the border between Telangana and Maharashtra early Thursday morning.

The incident sent panic among villagers under Wankidi Mandal. People suspect that a tiger which injured five cows of a herd at Dhaba village on November 24 might have attacked the calf.

The tiger was sighted at an eco-bridge near Goyagaon village in Wankidi Mandal on National Highway 363, triggering panic among people.

The farmers were hesitant to harvest the cotton crop. They have requested the Forest Department's officials to take steps to prevent human loss.

Earlier, Forest officials said that they were tracking the movement of the tigers by installing CCTV camera traps and deploying animal trackers. They advised the villagers to avoid sudden confrontations with the tigers and not to venture deep inside the forests.

Kumaram Bheem Asifabad district had witnessed the killing of two persons by tigers in 2020.

In the first incident on November 11, 2020, a 20-year-old tribal youth was mauled to death by a tiger in the Girelli forest area of Rebanna Range in Asifabad division.

A few days later 15-year-old tribal girl was killed by a tiger in the Bejjur reserve forest in Asifabad.

Following the killings, a 10-member committee was constituted to suggest measures for mitigating man-animal conflict in the state

It was then announced that the committee would propose measures to avoid the recurrence of incidents of tigers killing human beings.

The Forest Department had also sought help from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in dealing with tigers in the region.