Bhopal: Tourists evacuated after tiger goes missing from enclosure at Van Vihar National Park

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Tourists were evacuated from Van Vihar National Park in Madhya Pradesh's Bhopal city, after a tiger went missing from an enclosure at the facility on Tuesday, an official said.

The big cat named Shaurya, aged six to seven years old, had been out of the enclosure for about six hours and was rescued after being tranquilised, the official said.

On getting information that the tiger had gone missing from the enclosure, tourists were safely evacuated from the Van Vihar campus around 10 am, Van Vihar's director H C Gupta said in a statement.

Teams were deployed at different places to prevent the tiger from venturing out of the national park, he said.

After closing both the entrances of Van Vihar, the search operation was started and later one of the teams found the big cat sleeping under a tree in the enclosure of swamp deer, Gupta said.

The national park's veterinarian Dr Atul Gupta and a team tranquilised the tiger and sent him back to his enclosure, he said.

Prima facie, it appears that the big cat managed to exit the enclosure, as the zoo keeper had left its gate open, Gupta said.

Shaurya was earlier rescued from Harda district in an injured state on January 13, last year, and was later released in Satpura Tiger Reserve in March after treatment in Van Vihar Rescue Centre, but was again brought back here in June last year, Gupta said.

According to officials, the tiger had stayed out of his enclosure for six hours. He allegedly went missing around 8 am, but the matter came to light around 10 am.