Four people reported to have been killed and three injured in an attack by a female bear, who was protecting her cubs, in the forest of Koriya district of Chhattisgarh on Sunday night, December 6, 2020. The incident happened when a group of villagers unknowingly came too close to bear cubs inside the jungle while picking wild Harra seeds near village Angwahi of Devgarh Range under Koriya Forest Division.
A rescue operation launched by District Administration and Police Department ended with the recovery of four bodies and one man who saved his life by climbing up a tree on early Monday morning. The rescuers used a backhoe loader machine to reach the spot. The rescue operation was supervised by MLA Gulab Kamro, Collector Koriya SN Rathore, Superintendent of Police Chandramohan Singh, and Koriya Divisional Forest Officer Imotemsu Ao.
The residents of Pando-dominated forested village Angwahi entered Jungle on Sunday afternoon. As it got dark in the late evening, a female bear attacked the villagers. Four people including a couple were killed on the spot while three were taken to hospital with critical wounds.
The Local MLA, District and Police Officials as well as DFO Koriya Anup Shrivastava had rushed to the spot as soon as the news reached to them. The officials console the families of victims.
The deceased people have been identified Angwahi residents as Rajkumar (42), Injoriya Bai (60), Phoolsai (65) and Shivbachan (50), resident of Pusla. Phoolsai and Injoriya Bai were a couple. Two injured women were identified as Sonmani (45), wife of Hariram, and Basanti (40), wife of Banwari, both residents of Angwahi while the name of one man was not yet known.
The extremely-protective bear also kept lingering on below the area, atop of which a man was sitting to escape from attack, for a long time. It took a lot of effort to chase away the female bear. MLA Kamro expressed grief and assured full assistance to the victims and directed the Forest Department to pay the compensation immediately.
As incident sparked anger among villagers, Administrative Officials had started considering about shooting the female bear, but after talking with DFO and Senior Wildlife Officials, the idea was dropped. Forest Officials confirmed spotting two cubs of the female bear, which attacked the villagers.
Forest Department has for the time being deployed a special team to monitor the female bear and directed to catch her by tranquillizing if required whereas the villagers were advised to not venture out inside forest.
