Terrified by maneaters, villagers to meet Pauri Garhwal DM to air their grievance
The Uttarakhand government n its forest n wild life departments should tighten their belts to protect the lives of inhabitants living in interior villages n roadsides as attacks of maneater leopards in Uttarakhand’s Garhwal and Kumaon regions have increased manifold with children, women and senior citizens, even youths becoming their prey with no hope of survival.
There is terror all around in almost all the districts of Uttarakhand. The maneater attacks and human killings by these predators in Uttarakhand is nothing new but has been going on for hundreds of years but then these carnivores earlier used to attack the human beings inside jungles when they felt that their privacy is being breached. But now they are freely roaming on prowl for human flesh targetting children n women in particular in agricultural fields n even roadside houses.
The stories of horrible maneater kills of Rudraprayag, Garhwal n some districts of Kumaon region before independence find mention in the books of the then prominent hunters like Jim Corbett who after several days of manipulation n trap, was successful to kill the dreaded maneater who has killed more than 125 humans including children, women , youths n old aged given relief to the inhabitants of Chamoli district.
This was then a great achievement even lauded by the then viceroy, who was the friend of Jim Corbett.
Since then hundreds of maneaters have been killed but the human kills by these dreaded maneaters goes on unabated even after seventy years of India’s independent.
Wild tigers n leopards of Uttarakhand especially Bengal tigers are considered to be an endangered spieces with Uttarakhand having quite a good number of them apart from tigers living in other parts ( jungles) of various states. According to a conservative estimates till 2018 about 2, 967 tigers existed in India where as about 9, 265 leopards. In Uttarakhand about three hundred maneaters have been killed so far while hundreds of humans during the several decades.
These days several maneaters are roaming freely posing direct threat to people living in villages, on roadsides, near the jungles and even in towns.
There havebeen several incidents of maneaters pouncing on walking men n women and grabbing children, infants and dragging them to the nearby jungles n eating them, leaving their highly mutilated bodies around.
Several maneater lynchings of children women n youths have been witnessed in Pauri n Chamoli Garhwal, lansedowne, Tehri Garhwal, Pithoragarh, Nainital, Bhikiyasain etc where less than ten year old girls, women working in farm lands n two men were brutally killed, and several including a forest officer/ guard n civilians injured recently.
Just two days ago a priest was allegedly killed by a maneater in Manyarsiun Patti temple area who highly mutilated body was found in the nearby jungle n a laborer’s decomposed n mutilated body in Devprayag area.
Two week’s ago a thirty year old woman was killed in Maletha n another woman attacked in Dangchaura village, few days later. People in and around Maletha village, Kirti Nagar, Dev Prayag and Kanskhet area are terribly upset n disturbed. They have urged upon the wild life n forest department to fix cages n tranquilize the maneaters to protect them n their children who are quite vulnerable.
The forest department are fixing some cages in the jungles of Kanskhet, Pauri Garhwal to trap the maneater leopards/ tigers but the terrified people are not satisfied. They want to get rid of these maneaters n killing them is the only alternative say sources. Two months ago the government appointed shooters have killed a maneater in Chamoli district n another at Kumaon region’s Almora district.
A delegation pf Manyarsuin, Kaljikhal n Kanskhet are meeting the Pauri Garhwal district magistrate Mr. Garbyal to air their grievances in this regard.
