Adilabad: A 21-year-old woman succumbed to attack by a tiger near Nazrulnagar in Kagaznagar mandal in Komaram Bheem Asifabad district on Friday morning. According to officials, the deceased, Morle Laxmi, from Gannaram village near Nazrulnagar, was picking cotton in the fields not very far from the reserve forest area when the incident occurred.
She is the fifth victim of a tiger attack in recent years.
The incident resulted in protests from the members of the deceased’s family and co-villagers, who held a dharna in front of the forest office in Kagaznagar with her body, demanding that the forests and surrounding areas be freed of tigers.
The incident occurred around 8 am on Friday. Forest department officials said the tiger, believed to be a three-year-old male that migrated from the Tadoba-Andhari tiger reserve in Maharashtra, bit Laxmi on her throat, resulting in her death. Though she was taken to a hospital, it was too late to save her by then, officials said.
There was a lot of anger among people over the presence of tigers in the area, who charged the forest department with not alerting people about the movement of tigers.
Forest officials, including the field director of Kawal tiger reserve S. Shantharam, and Asifabad district forest officer Neeraj Kumar Tibrewal met the family and the villagers, inquired about the incident, and assured the family that the department would assist them.
The family was given `20,000 as immediate assistance for the last rites of the victim. The family was also assured that `10 lakh compensation would be provided by the government for the loss of life.
According to officials, the woman was working in a cotton field when a group of around 30 to 40 villagers reached the area following news that there was a cattle kill by the tiger there, very close to the field.
The officials said the villagers made loud noises to drive the tiger away and some also threw some stones following which the tiger escaped towards the cotton field where the woman was working and attacked her.
While five persons were died in past four years in conflict situations with tigers in KB Asifabad district, two lost their lives in elephant attacks in the Kagaznagar forest division in April this year.
