Bahraich: In a fresh attack by wolves in Uttar Pradesh's Bahraich district, one child was killed and three others were injured, a senior forest department official said on Tuesday.
This incident adds to a series of recent attacks, with five children having fallen victim to wolves in the past month and a half, the official said.
Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Ajit Pratap Singh said the wolves attacked three children in a village on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday and by the time the response teams arrived, the wolves had already moved on to another village, where they killed a five-year-old child.
"Our teams have been patrolling over two dozen villages in the Mahsi tehsil of Hardi police station area continuously day and night. Last night, we received inputs that wolves had attacked three children aged three, six and nine in the Chhattarpur gram panchayat under the Kherighat police station," Singh told PTI.
Singh said before the teams could reach the scene, the wolves had already moved to the nearby village of Raipur, where they attacked and carried away Ayansh, a five-year-old child, from his parents' home.
The child's partially devoured body was found in a nearby field in the early hours of Tuesday, he said, adding that, "the body has been taken into custody for post-mortem examination".
He said six children have now died in similar attacks over the past month and a half in the region.
Experts including IFS Akashdeep Badhawan from Barabanki and B Shivshankar from the Katarniaghat wildlife division are leading the ongoing efforts to control the situation.
The district magistrate, superintendent of police and senior forest officials are actively patrolling the area.
Efforts to capture the wolf pack continue with the cooperation of the police, administration and local representatives.
This time, the wolves moved into new areas, avoiding villages that were being patrolled. Singh said the forest department has been using elephant dung and urine to divert the wolves' route when the attack occurred.
High-frequency drone cameras are being used to monitor the wolf pack. So far, three wolves have been captured, he said.
However, there is still uncertainty about the total number of wolves involved, with the administration and forest department estimating three more wolves, while villagers claim there could be up to a dozen, he added.