Ten Karnataka forest department employees were forcibly confined inside a cage for hours on Tuesday after angry villagers in Bommalapura village, located within the Bandipur Tiger Reserve’s buffer zone, pushed them into the enclosure set up to trap a tiger. The villagers were angry at the department’s failure to catch the animal, and only released the employees after senior officials intervened.
A case was registered based on a complaint filed by a forest officer, and five people were arrested, M N Shashidhar, Additional Superintendent of Police, told The Indian Express on Wednesday.
The tiger was previously spotted in the field of a local farmer named Gangappa. Several cattle kills had been reported from the area in Gundlupet taluk in Chamarajanagar district, and villagers accused forest department officials of inadequate response, alleging they were relying solely on passive trapping methods.
“We have complained repeatedly, but no combing has been carried out. Just placing a cage is not enough,” a local farmer said.
The situation escalated on Tuesday when villagers reported another tiger sighting. Angered by what they perceived as a delayed response from forest authorities, villagers confronted the 10-member forest team upon their arrival and locked them inside the cage.
Farmers have now threatened to lay siege to the forest department office. Raitha Sangha leader Honnur Prakash warned that if the forest department fails to capture the tiger, then they would storm into their office.
The human-animal conflict in Chamarajanagar district, which houses two tiger reserves and a wildlife sanctuary, has been rising in recent years. In July, local farmers poisoned a tigress and her four cubs in Male Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary as the tigress had killed a farmer’s cattle.