A crab hunter from Lahiripur-Chargheri village under Gosaba block is being feared killed by a tiger inside the Golbax creek.

Victim Sibapada Sarkar, 55, was on Tuesday reportedly dragged away by a tiger from a boat where he was preparing his bait to trap crabs along with his wife and a friend. Both tried to resist the tiger but failed. Till Tuesday evening, the body of the victim could not be found by state forest department personnel who are also searching in the adjacent jungles.

Sibapada, with his wife Suchitra Sarkar and friend Sasanka Mondal, had gone to the forest area on a boat to trap crabs on Tuesday morning. Forest authorities alleged that they had illegally entered the prohibited zone.

Sources said crabs from the region sell between Rs 1,000 and Rs 1,500 per kg, and were perceived as a lucrative illegal trade at a time back-to-back cyclones Amphan and Yaas have ruined the local economy.

The victim’s wife Suchitra said that Sibapada was a farmhand but had become too weak to do hard work and hence began hunting crabs for a living.

“He had no other option,” Suchitra said.

She told police that Sibapada anchored the boat and was preparing the bait when the tiger jumped on it and attacked him.

“The tiger held his neck under its jaw and began to drag him towards the jungle. We were helpless… still I took up the bamboo pole and began to hit the tiger. Sasanka also joined me. But it made no difference and the animal took away my husband inside the jungle,” Suchitra said.

Later, Suchitra and Sasanka returned and informed Sunderbans coastal police and also forest officials.

Repeated incidents of attacks on crab hunters and fishermen in the Sunderbans mangrove area, particularly inside the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve, have become a matter of concern to the forest officials who have appealed to villagers not to risk their lives by infiltrating the domain of tigers.

An official of the reserve said on Tuesday: “It is unfortunate that the crab hunters often invite trouble by entering the domains of tigers.”

Ashim Gayen, who runs an NGO in Gosaba called the Sunderbans Tiger Widow Welfare Society, said: “People here have little means of income for survival.”

The small amount which they generally earn doing farming jobs does not help run a family properly. Moreover, people after the age of 50 become feeble for such work. So for an obvious reason, people opt for crab hunting despite the risk factor”.

"In a successful crab trapping venture, one can earn anything between Rs 20,000 and Rs 30,000”, Gayen added.

Women attacked with acid

Calcutta: Two village resource persons attached to Charghat gram panchayat in Swarupnagar block of North 24-Parganas were injured when goons allegedly hurled acid at them on Monday evening.

The two women were admitted to a local hospital, from where one of the victims with critical injuries to her eyes was transferred to a Calcutta hospital for advanced treatment. Police have arrested Pintulal Mukherjee for his suspected involvement in the attack. He was produced in a court in Basirhat on Tuesday and remanded in police custody for two weeks. At least four men attacked the women in Charghat-Kamarpara area.