Odisha: Man-eating ‘Sundari’ to be translocated!

Angul: A day after Royal Bengal Tigress ‘Sundari’ allegedly killed a woman in Odisha’s Angul district, triggering widespread anger among local residents, the forest officials have roped in experts from other states to tranquilize the big cat in order to remove fears from the minds of locals before taking any further action.

The tigress was brought from Bandhavgarh National Park in Madhya Pradesh and was released into forests of Satkosia on August 17 with an aim to increase the population of the big cat in the sanctuary.

SMT Rehman, Divisonal Forest Officer (DFO) of Satkosia Wildlife Division, informed to the media, saying the tigress will be captured by some expert teams by September 15.

He said the State Forest Department will take the help of two tranquilizing expert teams, which will be brought from Dehradun and Bandhavgarh, to tranquilize the tigress.

The same was reiterated by Angul Superintendent of Police Mitrabhanu Mohapatra, assuring the angry villagers that his administration will urge the government to translocate back the tigress to Bandhavgarh on the basis of public demand.

Sources said the forest department officials took the decision to send back the big cat sensing further threat to the lives of nearby villagers.

Some villagers claimed that they are still living in fear and panic and not able to perform their daily works as the ‘hungry’ tigress is on the prowl in the forest.

Notably, a 35-year-old woman, identified as Kailashi Soya, was allegedly attacked and mauled to death by ‘Sundari’ when she was taking bath in a pond near the forest on Wednesday.

The villagers had claimed that Soya had gone to a nearby nullah to take a bath in the afternoon. When she did not return, her husband and other villagers went to search for her in the nearby forests and found the body of the woman.

Following the incident, the villagers blocked the Angul-Tikarpada road demanding immediate relocation of the tigress and adequate compensation to the family of the deceased.

The angry from several villages in Satkosia torched the forest range office at Tikarpara, a forest department guest house at Hatibari. They also thrashed other forest officials in Tikarpara and Hatibari.

Today, the Forest Department provided a compensation of Rs 60,000 to the family of the deceased for her cremation and an ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh. This apart, the district administration also assured a job to one of the family members,” the SP told the media.