Third fatal tiger attack in Pilibhit, six MP villagers die of mystery animal bite

A tiger dragged a 45-year-old woman by her neck from inside her home before killing her near Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh, marking the third fatal tiger attack in the area in the last 22 days, forest officials said on Wednesday. The body of the woman was later found in a sugarcane field around 600 m from her home under the Hazara police station limits, they said.

"Reshma, wife of Ram Kishore from Shanti Nagar village, was washing utensils near a hand pump inside her house when the tiger attacked her on Tuesday," Hazara SHO Siddharth Upadhyay said.

The village is part of the Sampurna Nagar forest range, located about 80 km from Pilibhit district headquarters. The range falls within Lakhimpur Kheri district, and the village is about 20 km from the range office.

Villagers claimed the tiger has been on the prowl in the vicinity for the past month, yet the forest department failed to take any action to capture it. On 14 May, a farmer named Hansraj was killed in a tiger attack at Nazirganj. Four days later on 18 May, a tiger killed a man named Ram Prasad at Chatipur.

Meanwhile, the recent death of six people bitten by an unidentified animal in Madhya Pradesh's Barwani district has prompted a massive search operation by the forest department after villagers reported sightings of a hyena in the area, officials said on Wednesday.

Prima facie, the yet-to-be-identified animal is suspected to have been infected with the rabies virus, though confirmation is awaited pending lab reports. The suspense deepened as a senior forest officer pointed out that an animal infected with the rabies virus typically dies within a few days.

The attack occurred in the early hours of 5 May in Limbai village and nearby areas, where 17 people were bitten while sleeping outside their homes. All the victims were administered anti-rabies vaccines, officials said. However, between 23 May and 2 June, six of them succumbed to the bites, officials said.

Forest range officer Vikas Jamre told PTI that locals reported spotting a hyena in the area around the time of the incident. "Pugmarks suspected to belong to a hyena have been found, and based on this, our search operations have been intensified,” he said.

A team of 45 forest personnel is combing a 15-km radius around the village, which is located approximately 4.5 km from the nearest forest boundary. "The suspected pugmarks are under examination, but it is yet to be confirmed whether they indeed belong to a hyena," Jamre added.

Divisional forest officer Ashish Bansod stressed that an animal infected with the rabies virus typically dies within a few days. "We cannot say confidently at this moment that the same hyena had attacked villagers a month ago which local residents claimed to have spotted," he added.

To ascertain if the victims contracted rabies, brain tissue samples from one of the deceased and saliva samples from surviving patients have been sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune.

The state government has awarded a compensation of Rs 8 lakh each to the families of the six deceased.

Chief minister Mohan Yadav spoke to family members of villagers bitten by the unidentified animal over the phone and assured them of all possible help.