Forest department on Thursday booked five persons in connection with killing of a tiger in Ratapani. An eight-year-old tiger was found dead with severed paws near Ratapani Wildlife Sanctuary in Raisen district on Wednesday. It takes this year’s tiger death toll to 22 in the state.The department officials did not rule out poaching of the animal for black magic as two front paws were chopped and hair around tail and eye lashes was missing.
Investigating on the line, the forest department on Thursday conducted searches at house of an occult practitioner. Claws of peacock were recovered from the house during the search. Forest department has not found any other evidence in the vicinity of Ratapani. CCF Dr SP Tiwari (Bhopal) informed that five persons practicing black magic have been booked in connection with tiger’s death. “We raided a house of black magician and recovered claws of peacock, however nothing related to tiger was found. Since there was no bullet or other injuries on the tiger’s body so we are probing if black magic was the reason for killing the big cat, said Tiwari.
On the same lines, chief wild life warden (Madhya Pradesh) Shahbaz Ahmed said that all angles were being probed as no injury mark or evidence of poisoning was found. Viscera have been sent for testing to Hyderabad and no trace of poisoning in water bodies were found, said Ahmed, adding that the teams were working and soon the cause of the tiger death would be ascertained.
The carcass of tiger neither had any mark of bullet or other injury. It is not yet clear whether someone severed paws of the dead tiger or it was poached for paws only as its skin and fangs — for which tigers are generally poached — were intact so this has shrouded mystery over death. It was in a decomposed form and experts believe the tiger must have died four to five days ago. Samples were collected and sent for forensic examination.
