A 10-year-old boy, who had taken his cattle to graze in a jungle near the Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary in this district, was mauled to death by a tiger, officials said on Friday.
Following the incident on Thursday, the forest department has stepped up patrolling in the area and villagers have been advised not to venture out of their homes, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Akashdeep Wadhawan said.
According to the local people of Amba village, located on the periphery of the sanctuary, some people were grazing their cattle in the jungle on Thursday evening when a tiger roared, prompting the villagers to run from there. However, Mahfooz could not run from there and was caught by the tiger.
As the villagers gathered and started making noise, the tiger went towards the jungle, but Mahfooz had died by then.
Forest department officials said the boy's mutilated body has been sent for post-mortem, and assistance of Rs 5,000 has been provided to his family for conducting the last rites.
The latest incident took the death toll from man-animal conflicts in the Katarniaghat sanctuary to 19 since April last year, the DFO said.
From April 2022 to June 8, 2023, 19 persons, including women and children, have lost their lives in such conflicts, while 70 have been injured, he added.
"Efforts are being made to keep animals away from residential areas by using modern electronic devices and safe chemicals that do not harm both animals and humans," Wadhawan said.
"We are constantly striving for awareness among villagers through voluntary social organisations and local citizen groups. Workshops and mock drills are being organised in the villages adjoining the forest. Awareness campaigns are being run through WhatsApp group messages, SMS, pamphlets and on social media," he added.
The Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary is a protected area in the Upper Gangetic Plain in Uttar Pradesh and covers 400.6 sq km in the Terai region of the Bahraich district.
The Katarniaghat Forest provides strategic connectivity between the tiger habitats of Dudhwa and Kishanpur in India and the Bardia National Park in Nepal.
According to Dabeer Hasan, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) project officer, 37 leopards and 35 tigers inhabit the Katarniaghat division.