A 21-year-old man, part of a group trying to catch crabs from a creek in the Sunderbans, was killed in a tiger attack on Monday.
Sankar Bhakta was a resident of Paschim Dwarikapur village in Patharpratima, around 110km from the city.
“He was part of a group catching crabs in Dhuibhasani forest when the tiger pounced on him and dragged him away around 8.30pm on Monday. His body was found on Tuesday,” said an official of South 24-Parganas forest division.
With Monday’s casualty, at least 31 people have died in tiger attacks in the mangrove delta over the past 15 months. 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.
But most of the deaths have happened in the Sunderban Tiger Reserve Area.
“This is the first death in a tiger attack in South 24 Parganas forest division in 2021,” said Milan Mondal, the divisional forest officer of South 24 Parganas.
The foresters and local police are probing if the group had a boat licence certificate (BLC).
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. The ban followed the last casualty in STR, on October 4.
Asked if the South 24 Parganas forest administration was planning a similar move, Mondal said: “Such decisions cannot be taken overnight. We will do what is needed”.
But any ban on fishing would pose fresh challenges for many people in the fringe villages, people who are without a steady income and forced to enter the forests for crab, fish or honey.