Tiger mauls estate worker in Kodagu village

Shyam Sundar Vattam | NT

In a shocking incident, a tiger mauled an estate worker to death at Rundraguppe village in Virajpet taluk of Kodagu district on Monday.

The big cat has been on the prowl for some time giving sleepless nights to residents in parts of Kodagu district where the tiger menace is rampant. A few months, a tiger had killed several people working in coffee estates and fields that forced the forest department to launch a massive search operation to trace it. In fact, the forest department had captured one or two tigers suspected to be responsible for the attacks. Now, the latest attack on Monday has indicated that the big cat is once again on the prowl in the hill district of Kodagu.

According to information reaching here, the deceased has been identified as Ganesh Puttu (29), a resident of Gaddemane in Attur village of Gonikoppa, who was an estate worker. On Monday, he was plucking black pepper from the estate belonging to Koganda Aiyappa of Rudraguppe-1 village in Virajpet. Around 4 pm, the tiger came from behind and pounced on him. The worker was shocked over the ferocity of the attack and fell down. The tiger then caught hold of his neck resulting in his death on the spot.

On receipt of information, the Range Forest Officer of Virajpet and officers of Virajpet Rural Police visited the village and inspected the spot.

As the news of the tiger killing the worker spread like wildlife, villagers of nearby estates and leaders of the Raitha Sangha rushed to the spot and vent their anger on the forest department. It is learnt that the officials tried to shift the body from the spot to a nearby hospital in a hurry but were prevented by villagers. They contended that at the same spot, a tiger had killed a calf belonged to A. Subbaiah just ten days ago. Had department officers taken immediate action, the brutal killing of Ganesh could have been prevented, they added.

The villagers refused to shift the body till the arrival of the Chief Conservator of Forests or senior forest officer at the spot. However, on the insistence of the local police, the body was shifted to a nearby hospital for the postmortem and handed over to the family on Tuesday.

The department has announced a solatium for the family of the deceased worker.

Meanwhile, the forest department has launched a massive search operation in the area to nab the big cat.