Panel's clean chit to Delhi zoo in case of tiger mauling youth

A year after a 20-year-old youth was mauled by a tiger in its enclosure, the inquiry committee set up to examine the case gave a clean chit to Delhi zoo authorities on Wednesday. The committee has put the onus on Maqsood, saying that his obsession for tigers led to the incident.

It further said that under the given circumstances the zoo authorities tried their best to save the youth and cannot be held responsible for the incident.

However, the committee mentioned that authorities at National Zoological Park are not equipped on the professional front to deal with such emergencies and would require technical expertise and implementation of well developed plans to reach the desired level of preparedness. Interestingly, it pointed out that CCTV cameras only cover the entry gate and animal enclosures are not under the surveillance.

The inquiry committee was set up last after the incident however, it findings came to light after it recently submitted its report to the Delhi High Court based on a PIL filed concerning the safety of the visitors at zoo.

The report reveals that Maqsood was given enough warnings by the guard deployed at tiger enclosure before the incident took place. The report said that Maqsood was obsessed with tigers and was also seeking treatment for his mental sickness.

The committee observed that as this was the first incident ever to take place in the zoological park, occurrence of such ghastly incidents is least expected. "Even if the authorities were informed timely, they would not have been able to take steps to prevent the incident as it would have taken them at least 20 minutes to save Maqsood and in the mean time the animal could have caused harm to the visitor."

The committee also gave series of recommendations that included- regular mock drills to train staff to reach the emergency site in shortest possible time, provision of a dedicated vehicle to the zoo hospital to deal with animal escape and human safety, review the master plan with respect to new possible hazards and the action points identified should be incorporated besides regular monitoring mechanism through competent disaster management group.

The counsel for Centre further submitted that a committee is likely to be constituted to look into such kinds of mishaps. The court has asked the Centre to file an affidavit before December 2, stating whether any such committee has been constituted to look disaster management.

"I am going to challenge the report and seek directions from the court to direct fresh inquiry committee to check the current preparedness level of the zoo authorities to prevent any such incident again," said Avadh Kaushik, petitioner.

The youth's wife had also sought compensation of `50 lakh from the Centre, National Zoological Park, Delhi government, Central Zoo Authority, a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Delhi Police Commissioner. While Delhi government's forest department had said it was not competent to award compensation as the zoo was under the jurisdiction of the central government the Centre stated that the zoo was yet not in stage of preparedness to deal with such emergencies in professional manner.