Tiger kills another woman in Tadoba

Chandrapur: Tiger killed yet another woman in buffer zone of Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) on Friday afternoon. Surekha Shende was collecting grass, meant for making brooms, when the feline attacked her in compartment no. 379 of Chandrapur (buffer) range.
Surekha, the wife of police patil Sajjan Shende of village Nimbala, had gone deep in the jungle along with over a dozen fellow-women to collect the grass in the morning.The women were busy scything grass in vast pastures of the forest around 6-km away from the village, when a lurking tiger pounced upon Surekha.
Sources claimed that the full-grown tiger ripped open her throat and abdomen and started devouring the body even as other women watched in horror. The women raised an alarm and tried to scare the beast away, however the tiger growled over them and kept devouring the body. Later, the big cat dragged the body deep in the forest while the other women rushed back to village to seek help.
Villagers discovered the mutilated body of Surekha around half a kilometre away from the attack spot. Local forest officials reached the spot along with villagers and brought the body to the safe surrounding of the village Nimbala. By the time, a team led by RFO YB Yelmule too reached the scene. Yelmule had to face the wrath of villagers for the rising man-animal conflict in the area. He was forced to summon a posse of Ramnagar police from Chandrapur to control the situation.
CCF and field director, TATR, GP Garad confirmed the incident and claimed that Surekha Shede was killed in tiger attack. Notably, Chandrapur district has witnessed a total of 19th human death in wild animals attack this year and out of these 14 have been mauled by tigers.
Man-animal conflict is not new to villages in buffer zone of TATR. Conflict has soared high in buffer zone when a leopardess had turned man-eater and killed half a dozen people during summer months in 2013. Forest department was forced to give shooting orders to kill the man-eater, but fortunately it was captured in a cage later.