Heavy ruckus, with ‘Rasta Roko’ by family members and villagers of a deaf and mute man who was killed in a tiger attack on Friday in Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR), took place at National Highway No 44 in Deolapar on Saturday morning. The villagers denied to receive the body of the deceased after the post-mortem on Saturday morning and conducted ‘Rasta Roko’ on NH 44 demanding compensation and job to a family member of the victim’s family. Due to this ruckus, commuters faced huge traffic-jam for more than two hours on NH 44. A deaf and mute man named Surju Zitu Invate (55) from Kadbikheda village was killed in a tiger attack within Paoni UC Wildlife Range of PTR on Friday afternoon. The incident took place when the man was tending to his cattle and goats within the buffer forest area. A tiger pounced on him, resulting in fatal injuries. On Saturday, the family members and villagers once again started protesting against the Forest Department for this incident and demanded the capture of the tiger.

 

After getting information about the ruckus, Dr Prabhu Nath Shukla, Deputy Director, PTR with his team rushed the spot and urged the villagers to stop the agitation and allow the traffic to move. Keeping the situation in mind, the forest team called Deolapar Police and heavy Bandobast was also carried out to avoid any untoward incident. During the protest, Dr Shukla handed over a cheque of Rs 5 lakh to the victim’s family and assured that the remaining compensation of Rs 20 lakh will be paid in the next 48 hours. “We have given a cheque of Rs 5 lakh today and remaining compensation will be paid within 48 hours after submitting required documents,” Dr Shukla told ‘The Hitavada’. “We are sending a proposal to the department for setting-up of solar fencing in the area but the villagers are not in favour of solar fencing.

 

Therefore, we are going to erect chain fencing in some area and remaining will be covered with solar fencing,” he added. Along with this, the crop compensation cases normally requires one month’s time, but we are trying to pay the compensation within 15 days and all such crop compensation cases will be paid in 15 days, said the Deputy Director. We have formed a village co-ordination committee in which Sarpanch, Zilla Parishad President and forest officers are the members and the committee will solve the village level issues, he added. To avoid such incidents in future, we have started intensive patrolling in forest area as well as near the villages. While patrolling, we are including villagers and village volunteers also with forest teams. Along with this, there is a mobile patrolling team which will perform its activities on daily basis, said Dr Shukla.