New Delhi:
In a spine-chilling incident, a 20-year-old youth was on Tuesday mauled to death by a white tiger when he fell into its enclosure at the Delhi Zoo.
Video footage of the horrific incident caught on mobile phone cameras by visitors showed that Mohan, the seven-year-old tiger, was initially clueless when he found the youth in his enclosure and both of them stood face to face for several minutes.
The incident also brought to the fore the lack of quick response mechanism in the zoo to rescue a person from such a situation by tranquilising the animal or by any other method.
Maqsood, a resident of Anand Parbat area with a history of mental illness, was scrounging himself against a wall as the wild cat looked menacingly at him from close quarters.
There were various accounts of how Maqsood fell into the tiger’s enclosure. Some eyewitnesses claimed that he was leaning against the two-feet wall of the enclosure when he slipped into it.
Zoo officials and some other eyewitnesses said he crossed the iron fence preceding a brick wall and jumped into the enclosure.
“There is a stand-off barrier before the wall of the enclosure. He had crossed it at least two-three times and was repeatedly warned by the security guard stationed there. Meanwhile, some schoolchildren reached the spot and the guard’s attention was diverted when he jumped in and landed 18 feet below in the dry moat,” National Zoological Park curator R A Khan told PTI.
The incident, the first of its kind in the zoo’s history, took place around 1 PM.
Some eyewitnesses claimed security guards at the zoo could do nothing to help the youth when he was being dragged away by the tiger as they did not have tranquiliser guns.
“The youth was sitting before the tiger in such a position like he was pleading to him to spare his life and the tiger patted him on his face several times with his paws,” said one of the eyewitnesses.
It was only when the spectators started shouting in order to divert the tiger’s attention and the security guards were beating his cage in the arena signaling him to return in it when the tiger turned violent, caught the youth by his neck and dragged him away.
“People made noise by shouting and screaming in order todivert the tiger’s attention, but I did not see anyone throwing stones at the animal.
“The tiger kept hitting the man with his paws for almost 15 minutes while the man was sitting scared in front of him. The tiger then caught hold of his neck and dragged the man through the whole arena until he was dead,” said Himanshu, an eyewitness who made a PCR call about the incident.
The tiger did not feed on the youth after killing him.
Maqsood’s father told police that his soon used to consume some medicines for mental illness around two years ago and had also been consuming “bhang”. Maqsood was a school dropout and used to work in a factory.
“He used to leave home without telling his family at many times. Today also he had reached the zoo alone,” said a police official.
A police team led by DCP South-East Mandeep Randhawa inspected the spot. A zoo ticket was found in the victim’s pocket which confirmed that he was a visitor.
The body was moved for postmortem at 4 PM.
Police said that they have registered a case of negligence. However, it would be a matter of investigation to find whose negligence it was.
Spectators claimed that zoo authorities did nothing to save the man and security guards just had wooden sticks with them.
Zoo officials, however, refuted the claims and maintained that they had very little time to respond.
“The security guards had wireless sets through which they informed us and I rushed to the spot. They also had whistles and sticks but there is very little that we can do before a wild animal if a man jumps before it.
“We have tranquilizer guns at the zoo hospital but they are licensed weapons and cannot be given to guards. Before they could be brought it was all over. We had also called for crackers but the tiger returned into his cage on his own,” said Khan.
Reacting to accusations that the height of the wall was not adequate, zoo director Amitabh Agnihotri in his statement said that the enclosures of the National Zoological Park have been designed according to the standards laid down by the Central Zoo Authority.
In a horrifying incident, a youth was today mauled to death at Delhi Zoo by an adult white tiger when he accidentally fell into the enclosure while climbing its fence to take a picture.
Though it is not clear how the youth, in his early 20s, fell into the enclosure, eyewitnesses said he had tried to climb the fence but slipped.
The tiger did not attack the youth for a few minutes but became violent after someone threw a stone at it and guards started hitting the fence.
"The tiger then grabbed him by his neck and dragged him away," an eyewitness said.
Some eyewitnesses claimed that the security guards at the Zoo could do nothing to help the youth when he was being dragged away by the tiger as they did not have tranquiliser guns.
The horrific incident was filmed by an eyewitness which showed the tiger holding the youth by his neck and then killing him.
Police and Zoo officials were unable to take out the body from the enclosure even hours after the incident.
Zoo authorities declined to comment about the gruesome incident immediately.
