Youth jumps into tiger’s enclosure at Katraj zoo

PUNE: A 24-year-old jumped into the enclosure of a white tiger at Rajiv Gandhi Zoological Park in Katraj on Saturday afternoon exposing chinks in security, but the zoo officials rescued him unhurt.
The rescued youth, Mhanun Wankhede (24), initially tried to insert his hand through a white tiger’s wire mesh enclosure time and again, but other visitors prevented him from doing so.Annoyed by the interference, he jumped into the tiger’s enclosure just after it had its meal around 2.30pm.
The visitors alerted the zoo authorities and Wankhede was rescued. The authorities handed him over to the Bharati Vidyapeeth police.
Inspector Shrikant Shinde of Bharati Vidyapeeth police station told TOI that they had arrested the youth, having his roots in Akola. “He is currently staying in Chakan and works as a casual labourer on contract,” he said.
“It seems the youth is mentally disturbed and wears many talismans. Wankhede claimed his Guru rode a tiger and so he did not fear the animal. It was found that he did not want to harm the animal,” Shinde said.
He said the youth was sent to Sassoon General Hospital for a medical check-up. “We are also reading through his medical history,” said Shinde.
Zoo director Rajkumar Jadhav said, “The person was only a few feet away from the tiger inside the fenced enclosure. Surprisingly, the animal did not harm him. The onlookers and security guards saw him. We managed to open the night gate to bring him out safely.”
He said, “The parapet wall is 5-metre deep and its height is 4 feet. There is a vegetation buffer, which restricts entry of people into the enclosure. After an incident in Delhi, wherein a person had entered one such enclosure, we introduced changes in guardrails gave it an incline so that a person cannot stand on it. The guards have been deployed at all such spots. A team of 50 guards works round-the-clock in three shifts. The Saturday’s incident was a rare one. The man tried to enter the enclosure even after the guards tried to stop him.”
A man had committed suicide by jumping into a tiger’s cage at Katraj zoo on October 10, 2000. The tiger had killed the man.
The zoological park houses 389 animals of 67 species, including mammals, birds and reptiles.