A surge in animal attacks in Bahraich district has led villagers to contest forest officials’ claim that they have caught five of the six man-eating wolves tormenting the region since March and that only one remains at large.

Residents of Mahasi tehsil, where 50 villages remain terrorised, say eight attacks took place within a 10km radius in a span of 72 hours. There were instances of two attacks taking place at a distance of 3km around the same time, they have claimed.

“We believe that besides the lone wolf, there are other animals that have come out of the Katarniaghat Sanctuary and are attacking people,” a forest department official said, asking not to be named. “The villagers claim these are wolves but we need to verify that.”

Chandesh Singh, a resident of Mahasi, was sceptical.

“If the forest officers are right, it only underscores the failure of the 50 teams of experts looking for a single wolf, armed with shoot-at-sight orders and a dozen drones and helped by a large number of village committees working under the forest department,” he told reporters on Sunday.

Ajit Pratap Singh, divisional forest officer of Bahraich, said: “We have deployed every possible resource to catch the lone wolf. It’s changing its location every hour, with the sugarcane fields offering an easy hiding place.”

Chandesh, however, said: “The theory of a single wolf doesn’t hold water. All five wolves were spotted and caged within a radius of 10km from village Haribaksh Purva. The recent attacks suggest the animals have been camping in the agricultural fields of 100 colonies in 50 villages around the same Haribaksh Purva.”

Chikuri Singh, another villager, said: “We agree that this area is ideal for the animals to hide. There is the River Ghaghra on one side and endless sugarcane fields on the other. The villages are located in between. Katarniaghat stands on one side of the agricultural fields.”

He added: “The animals can’t go towards the river or the forest because of water-logging. Naturally, they enter the villages in search of food. The government is buying time hoping that once the rains are over, the man-eaters will return to the forests.”

The first killing of a human by the wolves in Bahraich this summer was reported in March. Since then, the animals have killed 10 people — mostly babies and the aged — and injured over 60.