A man was injured on Sunday morning after a tiger lunged at a group of people when they were looking for the big cat inside dense bushes in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district, forest officials said.

Forest Minister Jyotipriya Mallick told reporters that a full-grown Royal Bengal Tiger was first sighted by the villagers inside the thick bushes near a river at Garankathi hamlet of Kultali on Friday.

Pugmarks were also found in the area, and the locals claimed to have roars of a tiger for the past three days.

The incident happened on Sunday when the villagers along with forest department personnel were searching for the animal inside the thick bushes.

"The person received leg injuries and was being treated at a local health centre. If necessary, he will be taken to a hospital in Kolkata, another official said.

“Though he had severe blood loss, he is conscious and stable,” he said.

"We have fenced off the entire area on the side of river Piyali separating the bushes from human habitation and putting up cages with goats inside them as baits,” said the officer.

Villagers have been asked to have patience and to avoid the particular spot for sometime.

Hundreds of villagers gathered around the spot holding lathis, but the forest personnel prevented them from approaching the place.

On December 7, a Royal Bengal Tiger had strayed into a village in another pocket of the Kultali area of the district from the Sunderbans forest.

“It was captured using a goat in a trap cage, and then released in the Sunderbans a day later,” the official said. “It is not clear if the same tiger had strayed into the village,” he added.