Kaliabor: The Assam police detained six persons for their alleged involvement in badly injuring a Royal Bengal Tiger, which had strayed out of the forests moving in the Kaliabor area under the Nagaon district on Friday.
The Jakhalabandha police station in the district said that the six were detained based on a complaint lodged by the divisional forest officer (DFO) of Nagaon Forest range, Bibhuti Mazumdar.
The tragic incident took place on Thursday when some locals spotted the Royal Bengal Tiger in the Keribakori area and pelted stones at it. The tiger, which had strayed out of the nearby forest and moved into the human habitations, was exhausted after the locals chased the tiger.
The locals attacked the tiger with pelting stones as it was exhausted and had no energy to run. The stone pelting damaged one of its eyes completely while partially damaging the other one, the forest officials said.
Later, the forest officials rescued the injured animal by tranquillising it and it was rushed to the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) located close to Kaziranga National Park.
The CWRC officials confirmed the injury of the animal to be serious and said that the attackers had damaged one of its eyes completely while partially damaging the other eye.
"The condition of the tiger is bad. It received multiple injuries on its vital organs like the nose and eyes. Even if the animal survives it can't go back to forests again. So, we are also considering the option to send the tiger to one of the zoos," said veterinarian Bhaskar Choudhury.
"Six persons have been detained for the alleged role in attacking the tiger. We are checking the video footage of the incident and based on the footage we are going to detain more persons, who had attacked the tiger," said the police.
It may be recalled that the Royal Bengal Tiger strayed from the Kamakhyaguri reserve forest near Kaliabor earlier this week and moved towards Kaliabor. The Kaliabor sub-district administration had also issued a curfew order in and around Kaliabor earlier this week urging the people to avoid unnecessary movement to ensure that the conflict between the humans and the tigers could be averted.
