Man-eaters

[Pckts]

A first hand account of the incident above

Smarajit Ojah

Yesterday's Tiger incident in Dolabari, Tezpur was one hell of an experience for me. I'm sure I was saved by Mother Nature's blessings! I was on Rajumala, the departmental elephant with Doley, the mahout and Vishnu, the frontline staff who was armed with a DBBL. I had a Searchlight in my hand. We were trying to seek out the Royal Bengal Tiger amidst a paddy field when all of a sudden, our team came across the tiger crouched low among the paddy, we were just a couple of feet away. The tiger turned n faced us, growled. Vishnu lifted his DBBL gun, all ready to fire in self defense. Our elephant, Rajumala, started to turn and now our backs were towards the crouched, growling tiger. Vishnu whispered if he should fire in the air, I clasped his mouth to keep him absolutely quiet. I used my torch to signal the JCB where the tranquilizing team comprising of Kausik Barua and DrSamshul Ali were present and ready. All this while, my back was just a few feet away from the tiger, leaving me wondering why on earth it had still not attacked me. I indicated silently to Doley to take the elephant away from the tiger. Doley very slowly took Rajumala away from the tiger, towards the elephant, every step of Rajumala meant a few more feet between us and the Tiger. When we were about 5 meters away, I saw the JCB and the Tranquilizing team had started to move towards us and it was about 15 meters away from us. That would have been a catastrophe. So against all common sense, I jumped off the elephant and made a dash for the JCB. I could hear the growls just behind me, those deep vibrations sent shivers through me as I ran. As I reached the JCB, I informed Kaushik da and Samshul about the location and the behaviour of the RBT, then the duo climbed on the two elephants, Rajumala and Vikram and accompanied by armed guards, they moved in to tranquilize the tiger. As they moved, I followed in the JCB. When they were a few meters away, Kaushik da took aim and fired the tranquilizing dart, but unfortunately, it bounced off. All hell broke loose, the Tiger suddenly jumped towards the elephants, and man, I remembered that famous video shot by Sri R K Das in Kaziranga, Vishnu had no option to fire in self defense, He did not flinch and fired, forcing the tiger to abandon its attack and run away. We witnessed the unimaginable, a full grown Royal Bengal Tiger jump more than 10 feet from a crouched position, turn mid-air when being fired upon and then run away majestically. It ran towards the parked vehicles of the forest officials and press, smashed the windscreen of the Bolero of P.Sivakumar, CF, NAC and then ran off while we chased on elephant back and JCB, but it disappeared. After sometime we came to know that it had injured a person about a kilometer away from the site. We rushed to the spot and again me, Saurav Borkataki da, Rohini Saikia, Sivakumar sir, Kausik da, DrSamshul, among others used the departmental elephants to sweep the site. It was pitch dark, we just had torches and an armed guard each, it was a dense bamboo patch with ponds along with many houses all around. We searched for an hour or so, but in vain. It was 11.50 pm and by then abandoned the search. That was last night. An experience relived, I had faced similar situation in 2009 (Nagabandha, Morigaon), 2011 (Bhurbandha), 2012 (Bhogamukh), 2013 (Borguli, Nagaon), 2015 (Bhurbandha), 2016 (Twice in Dolabari). But this one was by far the largest of all tigers, maybe a close second to the one in Nagabandha (2009). Guess it was the blessings of Mother Nature that kept me from certain death. Thrills n a huge learning experience.
Pic courtesy Rohini Saikia

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