A Bengal tiger reached the doorstep of a village home in the Sunderbans on Saturday night.

Arun Giri and his wife Debika said they caught a glimpse of the big cat running back and jumping into the river adjacent to their house in Madhya Gurguria, Kultali.

Forest officials said the pugmarks found in and around the courtyard of the house were of a tiger. Giri and his wife said the tiger was hiding on the verandah.

The intrusion did not lead to any casualty but left the family and the village terrified.

Madhya Gurguria, in the Kultali sub-division of South 24-Parganas, is part of the Maipith area that has seen a rise in the straying of tigers into human habitations this winter. Earlier this month, a tiger was trapped in a cage in a patch of mangroves near Kishorimohanpur village and released back into the wild.

But this is the first time a tiger is suspected to have entered a home. The house is near the bank of a creek called the Makri river.

“We had dinner and retired around 8.30pm, which is earlier than usual. We were jolted out of bed by two sounds, the clinging of a metallic object and a loud thud on the bathroom door. We shouted out ‘who’s there’,” Giri, a 30-year-old mason who lives in the house with his wife and three daughters, told The Telegraph.

Giri’s parents live in an adjacent house. His father flashed torchlight and saw the movement of a “big animal” and spotted pugmarks. A fisherman himself, his father knew the danger.

He shouted to alert his son that a tiger could be out there, asking them to stay indoors.

Moments later, Giri saw in the torchlight, through gaps in the bamboo fence of the house, glimpses of black stripes on a yellow coat.

“The tiger ran towards the river and jumped into it. I came out of the room after a while and saw pugmarks and claw marks all around,” said Giri.

There are two doors to Giri’s house, both made of fragile tin. One of the doors, near the verandah, cannot be bolted. The other, which can be bolted, leads to his room.

“The tiger must have entered through the first door. I suspect it was hiding somewhere in the compound. There was a steel bucket with a steel plate on top. The tiger must have brushed them, causing the plate to fall. Scared by that sound and our cries, it must have tried to run away,” said Giri.

“While trying to escape, the tiger must have dashed the door of our bathroom as well. Because I heard a loud thud on that door,” Giri said.

Debika said they had a narrow escape. “My second daughter keeps going to her grandparents next door. We usually go to bed around 10pm. Also, the door to our room is fragile. One lunge by a tiger with its paws can break it open in no time,” she said.

“My husband returned earlier than usual and luckily we had closed the door early.”

The forest department was alerted and a team reached the spot later in the night.

The team spotted what they said were “exit pugmarks” on the other side of the creek.

“The tiger is suspected to have sneaked out of the Herobhanga 9 forest compartment. It has returned to where it came from,” said a forest official.

“We have seen the pugmarks. We have stepped up night patrolling near the embankment and on the creek,” said the official.

This newspaper has reported on a surge in tiger-straying incidents in the South 24-Parganas division of the Sunderbans.

The Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), a human rights organisation, said Maipith alone has witnessed at least 10 such incidents this season.

“There is an atmosphere of fear and panic. The nylon net fencing is in bad shape. Tigers are straying into villages. Fishermen are getting killed for trying to earn a living. But the forest department does not seem to be bothered. Many families have not got the compensation they deserve,” said Mithun Mondal, the assistant secretary of the APDR in South 24-Parganas.