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lokesh kote
It’s a constant fear for dear life these days in the Mullayyanagiri-Seethalayyanagiri belt in the district.
Tigers are on the prowl here for the last 10 days and have been chasing vehicle riders. Not that this is a new scare in the area. Tigers would suddenly appear and scare the daylights out of the people for one or two days and disappear in the past. But this time, they are just refusing to go back to the forests, much to the fright of the residents in the villages and in the verdant coffee estates.
On Tuesday afternoon, bike rider Appu of Pandaravalli was chased for quite a distance by a big cat at a turning in Seethalayyanagiri. He lost control of the vehicle and fell off it. The big cat disappeared into the shrubs hearing the man’s cries. He escaped the brush with death by a whisker and later showed the spot of attack to the Forest department personnel. Appu is now down with fear, trembling at the very thought of the striped strikers.
The nightmare of a coffee estate manager is even more hair-raising. At 7.30 pm on Monday, he was waylaid by three tigers, just 100 metres ahead of his car, while he was returning home from work. While a large-sized one climbed on to and alighted from the bonnet of the car in a jiffy, two not-so-big ones stood behind his vehicle.
“In the jaws of death, the only thing I could do was say a silent prayer,” the manager told Deccan Herald on the condition of anonymity. Thankfully for him, the tigers made a silent exit and vanished into the nearby bushes.
These are not just two isolated incidents of tigers striking terror in the hearts of people. Tourists have been spotting the big cats in the coffee plantations of the Mullayyanagiri valley. Wildlife photographer from Chikmagalur G Veeresh, on Monday, captured snaps of a tiger squeezing itself beneath the barbed wire fence of a coffee estate in the under-construction KSS International Hotel on the Pandaravalli-Channagondanahalli road. The hotel, incidentally, is embroiled in a dispute.
What has come as an insult to injury for the people here is the fact that the Forest department has not bothered to trap the tigers on the prowl, despite being informed of the spottings umpteen times. The people have also had to face threats by so-called environmentalists.
They have been asking the village residents to vacate their homes and live in the cities, if they want to be free of the tiger scare.
The villages are 10 km from the Bhadra wildlife sanctuary and have just one road connecting them to the outside world. With no buses plying to their place, the people commute by bicycles, two-wheelers and cars. That is their biggest risk factor.
“People here could be attacked by the big cats when they are unarmed and lonely while riding. They fear of being ambushed by the stealthy creatures,” says Gram Panchayat member Suresh.
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