Mob in India "lynches" rare tigress captured by forest officials

Sep 25, 2011, 13:33 GMT

New Delhi - A mob of villagers in India's Chhattisgarh state beat to death a Royal Bengal tigress captured in a net Sunday despite the protests of nearby forestry officials, news reports said.

'It was a pathetic situation,' the IAN news agency quoted forest official Rakesh Chaturvedi as saying. 'We had already put a net on the tigress to capture her alive but the people lynched the tigress.'

'Nobody in the crowd was ready to listen to us,' Chaturvedi said.

The mob in Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon district used sticks and stones to kill the tiger and then went on a victory march.

The seven-foot-long, 250-kilogramme tigress had reportedly killed a woman and 30 goats and other animals belonging to villagers in the area since late July.

Chaturvedi said it was difficult to catch her as she kept shuttling between Chhattisgarh and neighbouring Maharashtra state in an area known to be a stronghold of Maoist rebels.

The Royal Bengal tiger is a subspecies native to South Asia. It is an endangered species with about 2,500 individuals believed to exist.

India has an estimated tiger population of 1,706 tigers, down from 3,500 in the 1990s.

The government has various projects in place for preserving the tiger in its natural habitat.

Poaching and destruction of forests are the main reasons for the decline in tiger population.