The tiger that is suspected to have sneaked out of a forest in the Sunderbans and reached the doorstep of a village continued to elude foresters on Tuesday.

The big cat was pitted against a team of over 70 forest guards but the thick mangrove cover on the edge of the village provided an ideal hideout.

Pugmarks of the tiger were first spotted by residents of Kishorimohanpur village in the Kultali block of South 24-Parganas on Monday morning.

The animal was hiding in a small but dense patch of mangroves between a creek and the village. Forest officials said the tiger came from the Ajmalmari forest on the other side of the creek.

By Tuesday, the tiger had moved to another part of the same patch of mangroves. “The patch is contiguous. The patch where the tiger is hiding is close to Baikunthapur village,” said Nisha Goswami, the divisional forest officer of the South 24-Parganas forest division.

On Monday, the forest staff had fenced a kilometre of the mangrove patch near Kishorimohanpur village. On Tuesday, another 600m near Baikunthapur was fenced.

“We are bursting crackers to drive the tiger away to the other side (towards the creek and then the Ajmalmari forest),” said Goswami.

The forest team has yet to have a clear view of the big cat.

“We cannot use drones because of the density of
the mangrove cover. But the tiger can see us in all likelihood,” she said.

A forest official said the high tide in the morning might have deterred the tiger from crossing the channel and going back into the forest.

“We don’t know what prompted the animal to cross over. It may be an old tiger looking for easy prey or may have been driven out of its territory by another tiger,” said the official.

Sailen Halder, a resident of Baikunthapur, told The Telegraph: “There is a lot of panic here. The police and forest guards are shouting through hailers, asking people not to step out after sundown.”

The area comes under Maipith Coastal police station. The cops are helping in controlling the law-and-order situation.

“During the daytime, many people are gathering near the barricades set up before the mangrove patch,” said a forest official.