Face masks provided by the Forest Department to villagers as a safety measure in view of tiger movement. File photo
A tiger was spotted crossing the railway tracks near Makidi village in Telangana’s Komaram Bheem Asifabad district on Wednesday, prompting the forest officials to request the railway authorities to reduce the speed of trains plying on the forest stretch of the railway route along the Telangana-Maharashtra border.
A video of a man recording the movement of a tiger on the railway tracks on his mobile phone from a distance went viral on social media on Wednesday afternoon. The video footage created ripples among people living in the areas surrounding Makidi and Jakkapur villages along the inter-State border with Maharashtra. The Forest Department mounted drone-aided surveillance in the forest region straddling the Telangana-Maharashtra border following the sighting of a tiger near Makidi village on Wednesday.
A woman farm labourer was killed in a tiger attack near Easgaon village in Kagaznagar mandal on November 29, 2024, and a farmer was grievously injured in another incident of tiger attack at Dubbaguda village in Sirpur (T) mandal of the same district a day later. A slew of incidents of tiger attacks on cattle in Kagaznagar-Sirpur forest areas in the recent past triggered panic among residents of forest-fringe villages in the district.
When contacted, the District Forest Officer Neeraj Tibrewal told The Hindu that drones have been deployed alongside separate teams of Forest department personnel to track the movement of the tiger along the Telangana-Maharashtra border. “We have already issued the standard operating procedure (SOP) for the residents of forest-fringe villages and distributed face masks to them as a safety precaution,” he said, adding that meetings were held with people living in the vicinity of forest areas to sensitise them on the SOP.
Published – December 19, 2024 08:03 am IST
