Finally awakes the Uttarakhand’s forest department, deploys shooter who killed the maneater

After the increasing incidents of man eater attacks in Uttarakhand resulting in enhancing numbers of human casualties and raising of hue and cry in the print, electronic and social media, the government and its forest department has finally come out of a long sleep and started killing man eaters who’ve created havoc in the villages of Garhwal and Kumain Uttarakhand.

The print and electronic media and people on social networking sites have been trying to divert the government’s attention on this pivotal issue of tiger attacks and subsequent deaths of the villagers that included children, old aged and women going to nearby jungles for fodder or working in agricultural fields for their family’s sustenance .

So far hundreds of inhabitants of Uttarakhand Villages have become the victims of these maneaters roaming freely in the jungles of Garhwal and Kumaon Himalayas and coming nearer to the human settlements, killing human lives unreluctantly thus terrorising the local populace.

What is however surprising and shocking is the fact that not a single law maker, the chief minister or the minister concerned have expressed concern, anguish or seriousness to provide relief or adequate financial compensation to the family of the deceased including ensuring future safety. There is not a single state by them on this significant issue despite unabated killings of humans by these predators.

The newspapers of Uttarakhand were full of news highlighting the meteoric enhancement in the dreadful incidents of maneater invasion killing humans incessantly but unfortunately for the government agencies it was’nt the issue of priority.

It may be recalled that in a decade or so about 600 people have been the direct victims of the leopard turned maneater attacks in Uttarakhand and the pace of killing still goes unabated still.

However, after a long time the forest department had taken this issue seriously and deployed an official hunter named Lakhpat Singh to trace and kill a maneater leopard who recently made two children one 7 year’ and another ten year old supposedly in Bageshwar and Manila, its prey eating half of the body on the spot.

Just a week ago
the boy’s half eaten body was recovered in the forest close to Harinagari area of Bageshwar district. Angry villagers even set a forest afire resulting forest officials to swing into the action.

According to the news reports Lakhpat Singh and his colleague who are official hinters have so far killed 50 maneaters in the Uttarakhand forests, half of the numbers of Jim Corbett’s kills.

A day or two ago these hunters combed the entire forest stretch of Bageshwar and were finally able to trace and kill the 3.6 year old leopard as per the HT report.

The people of the area who were living under extreme terror and not able to get out of their houses due to the fear of maneater attacks have now heaved a huge sigh of relief.

Nobody is interested in the killings of these significant wild life but when maneaters become a direct threat to peoples’ existence these hard decisions need to be taken.

In view of the increasing commercialisation near the forests, increase in construction activities, blowing of dynamites and occuring of fires in the jungles have completely disturbed the fauna of UK hills and forest.

The leopards and tigers in the dearth of food, turn to nearby human settlements and make the human beings their easy prey.

The government of UK should come out with a concrete policy in this regard and arm its forest department with enough budget and equipments to ensure that instead of killing these maneaters, they should be tranquilised and caged in order to preserve them as well.
Pic by HT