Tigress shot dead by armed police

TNN | Dec 6, 2011, 03.58AM IST JORHAT: Personnel of Assam Police's armed battalion shot dead an adult tigress at Kaziranga National Park, about 250 km from here, on Monday, after it sneaked into a human settlement and attacked people near the Kohora forest range of the park. Assam chief wildlife warden Suresh Chand said a two-member inquiry committee has been constituted under the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). Both the members are from the NTCA - biologist Jyoti Das and Firoz Ahmed. "The NTCA has instituted a two-member committee comprising Das and Ahmed to probe into the killing. We got information of the killing soon after the incident," Chand said. Kaziranga National Park director Surajit Dutta said the tigress was killed at Bosagaon near Kohora forest range at 8.30 this morning. "The armed police opened fire when the tigeress attempted to attack people in the area," Dutta said. Park officials said that the tigress was creating panic among the people of the area. "By the time we went for the rescue operation, the tiger had injured two persons, including a local news channel correspondent. When the tigress tried to attack another person, police opened fire," a forest official said. The injured journalist, Ranjit Rajak, said, "I was injured on my back by the tigress while I was trying to collect visuals of the incident." In April this year, a tiger carcass was found at the Kathanibari forest camp of the park's Kohora forest range. The reason of death of the tiger could not be ascertained. Also in January, another adult tigress was found dead on a sand island of the Brahmaputra in the park. Poisoning was suspected to be the cause of the tigress's death. Kaziranga lost five tigers last year, mostly because of territorial fights. The national park has the fourth highest tiger density in the country. The latest NTCA report - 'Status of Tigers, Co-predators and Prey in India, 2010' has 15.92 tigers per 100 square km. It is estimated that there are about 106 tigers within the 830 sq km of the Kaziranga tiger reserve. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/guwahati/Tigress-shot-dead-by-armed-police/articleshow/11000465.cms