The tigress claimed its ninth victim when it killed a 70-year-old man on Thursday night in the forest area of Sahupur which comes under the Najibabad division and is close to the Badahpur where it claimed its eighth victim on January 26. Chief Wildlife Warden Rupak De, while talking to The Pioneer, said that it was being assumed that the killing was made by the stray tigress of Moradabad.
Forest officials tracking the tigress said that they were on the vigil but it was difficult to say anything conclusive with the area having many tigers and the killing took place in a thick forest area. The man was killed in forest area near the river. “We are working on the assumption that it is a tigress as we cannot say with surety. Our men are searching for the maneater and will only shoot after it is confirmed that it is the tigress,” said De.
Divisional Forest Officer, Bijnore, Vijay Singh said that if the last killing in Badahpur was counted as the eighth victim of the tigress, this would be the ninth killing. However, he admitted that they could not rule out the possibility of any other tiger having made the killing. “The area where the man was killed is an extremely dense forest which is continuous with the Badahpur area and the Corbett National Park that has several tigers. It is also not possible to get the pug marks because the area is a thick forest region,” Singh said.