Chandrapur: The problem tiger of Rajura, which is eluding forest teams for the last seven months, on Thursday night was trapped in a large cage in a culvert in Rajura range but it somehow managed to escape after few hours.
Sourced told TOI that lured by a bait the tiger walked into the specially-designed cage at around 10.30pm. The pressure sensitive gate fell down automatically trapping the beast. The eight-year-old tiger attacked the bait and injured it. But when the beast understood it was trapped, it left the bait and focused its energy on escaping, said the sources.
The strong beast managed to pull the trap door that slides into channel-grove and squeezed out through the narrow opening, said a source involved in the operation.
Among various other measures to tranquillize and capture the tiger, officials had placed a special cage at a culvert in compartment no. 170 in Rajura range where the tiger is having regular movement. The underpass was converted into a cage by barricading it from either sides. It has a trap door that automatically drops if an animal enters the cage.
Earlier, the cage was monitored by two forest department personnel sitting in a camouflaged enclosure kept at a safe distance. They were told to manually drop the cage’s gate with a rope tied to it if the tiger walked in.
After the move caused a controversy due to misunderstanding that forest personnel were being used as bait, the department fitted an automated mechanism to the cage’s gate.
According to sources, the tiger wouldn’t have escaped had the personnel monitoring the cage not been removed from the spot due to the controversy.
DCF, Central Chanda division, Arvind Munde confirmed the incident and said they would now adopt new strategy to capture the problem tiger.
The forest department has installed a camera trap that captured the tiger walking into the cage. The tiger couldn’t be snapped after escape as it took another route after freeing itself from the cage, said the sources.
The tiger is responsible for eight human kills in the last 22 months. Despite three extensions to the tranquillizing orders and various efforts taken by the forest department, the beast has evaded capture.