How life froze in villages near Delhi as a tiger walked in. And decided to stay

KHIJURI (REWARI) On August 17, two days after celebrating Independence Day, freedom was severely compromised for people living around Jhabua, a small reserve forest.In the woods with docile inhabitants like nilgai, chinkara and the occasional boar, a tiger walked in that day and made itself at home.The woods where children frolicked and women went to collect fodder for their cattle had all of a sudden turned sinister. In the farmland around it, nothing stirred. In houses within sniffing distance, families members took turns to keep an eye on the forest.No one saw ST-2303, but the tiger made its presence felt in every conversation. It was prowling around alright, though largely within the forest or on its edges. Camera traps set up by the forest department photographed it twice. Its pugmarks were spotted along the perimeter, near a waterbody and next to farms. medium113249081The most jangled nerves were in Khijuri, the village closest to the reserve forest – a 3.2 sqkm patch surrounded by a large spread of agricultural land – that ST-2303 wandered into. The adult male trekked 125km across the Aravalis from Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan through a terrain of bare rock, lush farmland and patches of scrub to reach Jhabua, putting Haryana on India’s tiger map.At Khijuri and neighbouring villages like Badhoj, farming consequently came to a standstill just before harvesting season. There are more than 100 acres of contiguous farmland around Jhabua forest, largely with cotton and millet crop.“We are supposed to start harvesting. But everyone is scared to go into the fields. We are unable to water the crops. Farmers growing cotton need to remove bugs from the crop. Though the tiger has not been seen outside the forest by anyone, who’s to say it won’t suddenly attack? Farmers working on the field will be sitting ducks. That’s what we are afraid of,” Khijuri sarpanch Mir Singh told TOI. medium113249569Many families here have cattle that live in sheds next to the houses. Keeping a watch on them has become a fulltime job because of fears that ST-2303 would come to villages for a hunt.“As soon as it gets dark, we are back inside our homes. Forget going to our farms, no one is walking on the roads either. We finish our work as quickly as possible, get home and lock the door,” said Puran Singh, a Khijuri resident.On August 30, it looked this ‘captivity’ would end as the tiger began retracing its steps, reaching Baghana village in Rajasthan. But it changed its mind and returned the next morning, sending locals back into high alert. On September 7, there was hope anew that the striped visitor would finally leave with pugmarks being spotted in Jakopur, a Rajasthan village 5km away.A team from the Sariska reserve dashed to Jhabua with veterinarians to tranquilise it, but ST-2303, adept at staying out of sight, evaded them all. By Sunday morning, it was back in Jhabua. Foresters believe the tiger will make another attempt to return to Sariska soon.If it does, and is successful, Kausalya Devi and her daughter will see their “house arrest” end. The two live away from the main village, in a desolate area, and have not ventured out since the tiger moved in. Villagers have been getting her ration, she said. medium113249168The narrow road from Khijuri to Badhoj skirts farmland. It’s a quiet walk or cycle ride in mornings. In evenings, particularly during monsoon, the chorus of cicadas can seem deafening. Pradeep has spent the last three weeks listening out for anything unusual. Among the few residents on this road, he doesn’t have the same benefit of distance that some fellow villagers do. If the tiger crouches in the fields, there’s no way he will spot it. And his house is right on the edge of it.Mohan Singh of Badhoj said they had been advised to only venture out in groups of five, so that they could defend themselves should the tiger attack. “We usually go to the forest to bring fodder for the cattle, but no one is doing that now. The poor animals are going hungry,” he said. At the adjacent Jhabua village, Karan Singh said the worst they had imagined was a leopard straying into their village, not uncommon in south Haryana. “It’s unthinkable that a tiger has become our neighbour,” he said.There are approximately nine villages around the reserve forest along the state border, six in Haryana and three in Rajasthan. Each village approximately has a population of 2,000 and is mainly dependent on farming and cattle-rearing. medium113249285 ShowQuotesThe forest department, after initially trying to tranquilise the tiger, switched strategy and decided to bring two cages from Gir in Gujarat to capture the tiger. “We engaged with the villagers and assured them that all necessary measures are being implemented to relocate the tiger safely while also ensuring that no man-animal conflict occurs during the process. It is a very dense forest, and it is difficult to go inside on foot. There are no defined trails and trekking into the forest to tranquilise the tiger is difficult. As it is a young tiger [three years old], it is very active. The tiger is hunting. It has taken two baits [buffalo calf] but tranqulising it is not possible,” Deepak Patil, divisional forest officer, Rewari, told TOI.This is the second time the transient male tiger, who is in search of new territory, has made a visit to Rewari this year. It had made a brief visit in January but went back to Sariska.Experts say large areas of Sariska are not good tiger habitat, and thus young tigers are dispersing. “Rewari can't be a suitable home for the tiger as the forest is not expansive enough. The tiger being there for a prolonged period might lead to conflicts with people, resulting in injuries and even fatalities. On the other hand, a significant portion of Sariska remains degraded with inadequate prey population, so many tigers can’t be accommodated there. It is also natural for older tigers with established territories to drive the younger tigers out, which then disperse to new habitats where available,” said Ghazala Shahabuddin, an ecologist and biodiversity expert.