Death in the Jungle

Hyderabad Shooter Hunts Down Maneater

Tigress Avni or T1 were shot down by Hyderabadi sharpshooter Nawab Shafat Ali Khan and his son Asghar Ali Khan in Yavatmal district in Maharasthra. The forest department took the help of the shooter after the maneater was responsible for the death of 13 persons. This real life incident is also the basis for the movie Sherni starring Vidya Balan.

The story didn’t stop there. Sudhakar wrote about the developments in the story beginning with the allegations against the father and the son of lapses in the way Avni was killed. The National Tiger Conservation Authority summoned the two for deposition.

In the report, Sudhakar reported that during the hunt the party did not tranquilize the tigress before shooting it down, rather they injected the dart after it was dead. The committee also deemed that the calibre of the gun used to kill is not up to regulation. He also reported on the movements of the two cubs of T1 through the Pandharkawada forest.

Sudhakar also reported on the climax to the litigation when the Maharasthra forest department closed the case against Asghar. They found no violation against the Wildlife Protection Act since everything has been done by the book.