Asifabad: In the latest wild animal attack, a man was seriously injured by a tiger when he was working in the cotton fields with his wife at Dubbagudem village in Telangana’s Kumuram Bheem Asifabad district. The wife’s wit and timely action, however, saved him from the jaws of the big cat.
The survivor, Rauthu Suresh, was attacked by the tiger on Saturday in Sirpur (T) Mandal at around 11 am when Sujata was picking cotton in a nearby field while Suresh was riding a bullock cart, unaware of the tiger’s presence nearby. When the wife realised she had shown immense bravery and fought off the tiger and managed to snatch her husband from its jaws, but not before he received critical injuries. The animal had clawed at his neck, which caused him to collapse.
Sujata says she was just some meters away from her husband and got stuck at the terrifying sight of the tiger attacking him, but her fear quickly faded, and she got some courage. “I grabbed stones and sticks lying nearby and shouted at the tiger. This move scared the tiger, and it retreated, allowing me to rescue my husband,” she says.
Later, she called other farmers and rushed Suresh to a nearby hospital, where he is said to be stable. “I didn't think about my safety but about saving my husband. If I had hesitated for even a moment, I might have lost him,” she says.
The incident comes a day after a 21-year-old woman was killed by a tiger on Friday. The repeated attacks sparked widespread fear among residents in several villages in the Asifabad district and raised concerns that the big cats might have migrated from the neighbouring state of Maharashtra due to the loss of their habitat.
The presence of the predator also forced people to suspend harvesting of the cotton crop in their agricultural fields. They have also stopped going to forest areas amid the major safety concern.
Meanwhile, the forest department has launched an intensified search operation to track the tiger, deploying drones in the Vempally forest section of Kagaznagar Mandal. Authorities are urging locals to exercise caution while venturing into nearby forest areas.
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