A mason who was forced into the forest after he lost income during the pandemic survived a tiger attack in the Sunderbans on Friday.
Gourhari Maiti, 42, recovering in SSKM Hospital in Kolkata, had returned to his native place in Gosaba block, around 100km from the heart of Kolkata, last year. Before the pandemic robbed him of livelihood, he used to work at construction sites in Kolkata.
“He knew several contractors. But none of them had work for him during the pandemic. He is not alone. Many men in our village have turned to the forests for livelihood,” said Nitai Maiti, Gourhari’s elder brother.
Gourhari’s story rings true at every corner of the mangrove land, where thousands of people have come back in the course of the past two years.
Many of them, forced to hunt for fish and crab in the rivers and creeks, are vulnerable to tigers and crocodiles. Close to 30 people have been killed in tiger attacks in the past 15 months in the Sunderbans, according to the forest department.
The deaths have been attributed to the local population’s increasing dependence on forest resources in the wake of livelihood challenges triggered by the pandemic.
On November 4, a man called Srinibas Mondal was killed in a tiger attack at a creek near Thakuran river. “Srinibas used to work as a daily labourer at construction sites outside Bengal and had come back during the lockdown last year,” said a member of an NGO that works in Kultali. Srinibas lived in Srikantapalli neighbourhood of Kultali.
Gourhari and Nitai left their village in Gosaba on Wednesday evening along with three others. The group set off on a fishing boat and reached a creek near Haldibari forest. The creek opens to a confluence of rivers near the Bay of Bengal.
“We were waiting for low tide to hunt for crabs in the shallow creek. It was late evening when the tiger attacked my brother,” said Nitai, who reacted instantly along with the other occupants, hitting the tiger with oars and sticks and forcing it to retreat.
A part of his scalp gone, his left eye severely damaged and blood gushing out of his head, Gourhari lay on the boat till the early hours of Saturday. Nitai had called a member of the Joint Forest Management Committee (JFMC) of his village that runs a patrol boat provided by an NGO.
“The patrol boat reached after eight hours. All that while, Gour was lying on the boat, two gamchhas tightened around his wound,” said a member of the JFMC.
Gourhari was first taken to a hospital in Gosaba where he received several stitches.
Haldibari forest area is under the jurisdiction of the Sunderban Tiger Reserve.
“The spot is inside the core forest area, where any kind of human activity is banned. We have patrol boats but it these are porous areas. It is not very difficult to stop a boat sneaking away in the dead of the night,” said Tapas Das, field director of the STR.
Many tiger attacks in the STR area have taken place inside several compartments of Jhila forest, prompting the authorities to impose a blanket ban on fishing in the said area.