Under shadow of tiger scare on festival of lights

Mall (LUCKNOW ): As the entire city was gearing up to celebrate the festival of light on Thursday, a bunch of villagers in Mall block, 50 km away from the city, were battling a scare that has been lurking around them for the past 24 hours. A partially eaten carcass of a bull found lying in a paddy field has confirmed the presence of tiger around.
The scare is haunting villagers in Kalyanpur, Godhan and Salirgar of the block.Ramcharan, a villager in Salirgar, had last seen the stray bull in the field on Tuesday night. “It was an agressive animal and often attacked people. The paddy field was its regular haunt,” said the man. “After I saw the bull in the field I took another route to my house and on Wednesday morning, the animal's half-eaten carcass was found lying in the field,” he said.
“Two policemen had come to inspect the spot and stayed back till late evening,” said another villager Ramprakash. The flesh, bones and blood stains of the dead animal are still at the spot. Kalyanpur, a dalit village in Maal block, seldom had a four-wheeler whizzing past it before Thursday morning. On Wednesday noon, after tiger's pugmarks were found in one of the villagers, Bhagwandin's, potato field, the nondescript village became a stopover for forest department's vehicles. But that has not made people secure against the lurking big cat.
The village does not have more than 500 inhabitants. To defend themselves against any eventuality, Saviti said, “We only have ‘laathis'.” “We have never seen the tiger but pugmarks show it's a big animal,” said Kalyani.
Forest department's team was camping in Godhan village on Thursday morning but to no avail. Apart from the pugmarks of the tiger, officers did not get any clue about its presence in the area. Villagers voiced resentment. “Be it fetching water to drink or answering nature's call, we can not do without going out of home every minute. And every time we can not go out in a group,” said Mohammad Rafiq.