Wild bear attacks on the increase in Uttarkashi district of Garhwal, Uttarakhand

UTTARAKHAND is already under the grip of the terror of noctural animals like tigers and leopards and incidents of these predators killing children, women and the villagers are on the rise with the forest department of the himalayan state doing very little or negligible to safeguard the lives of the citizens. Recently few days before a tiger entered a house in a densely populated state capital Dehradun who later on betrayed the forest officials who reached the terror stricken locality and house after four hours devoid of the tranquiliser gun, posing further danger to the populace where the horrible cat must have eloped.

Similarly, these days the inhabitants of the Uttarkashi district of the Himalayan state Garhwal, Uttarakhand are in the horrifying grip of Himalayan wild bear terror where from October 2016 to December 2017 about more than fifteen incidents of wild bear attacks have taken place rendering the local inhabitants and women working in the agricultural fields badly exposed to high risks due to incessant wild bear attacks.

Just two days ago two women who had gone in the jungle of GAJOLI VILLAGE under Usi Ganga Valley for cutting grass for the cows and buffaloes were brutally attacked by the wild bear and had to be addmitted in the district hospital of Uttar Kashi with several grievous wounds.

These two women of Gajoli village situated about 18 kilometre away from the district head quarter in Uttarakashi namely Mashanti and Surja Devi had gone to the jungle that is two kilometre away to cut the grass for pet animals during the noon. The wild bear pounced on them while they were cutting grass and injured them grievously.

On desperately retaliating and making tremendouse noice, the bear went inside the bushes and the injured profusely bleeding women came back running. They were later on ferried to the district hospital by the forest officials on 108 ambulance. During the cool winters when the high peaks of the mountains are covered by snow these wild bears don’t get green vegetation to fulfil their hunger and are therefore constrained to come in the down stream areas near the human hamlets for food.

And in order to protect themselves they get provoked and attack the human beings. In Uttarakhand majority of the children, old aged and women are their victims. Sounds shocking that tiger and wild bear sighting’s have become common in Uttarakhand’s villages and even towns and cities posing grave danger to human lives, these days.

Till now just in a year’s time there have been 15 incidents of attacks in Garhwal, Uttarakhand, majority of them in the villages under the jurisdiction of Bhatwari Block followed by Naugaon and Badkot blocks of Uttarkashi districts in Garhwal Himalayas.

SUNIL NEGI, President, Uttarakhand Journalists Forum