Cracker fire drives Bengal tiger back to forest, night watch ensures safe return
Telegraph | 30 November 2025
A Bengal tiger that strayed into a Sundarbans village on Thursday morning returned to the forest on Friday, forest department officers and villagers said.
Villagers said crackers were burst late on Thursday night, which drove the tiger back into its habitat.
The tiger is suspected to have returned to the Ajmalmari 11 forest compartment, a known tiger habitat, said an official of the South 24-Parganas forest division. “Fresh pugmarks have been spotted along the riverbank leading to the forest,” the official added.
A team of forest guards, police and members of the community-based tiger response team traced the pugmarks during low tide early on Friday. The tiger could have used the strong currents during high tide to swim toward the forest. The pugmarks became visible after the water receded, the official said.
Metro reported on Friday that residents of Kishorimohanpur village, under the Moipith Coast police station area in South 24-Parganas, spotted pugmarks early on Thursday. After a search lasting more than two hours, they saw the animal resting beside a creek. Alerted, the tiger darted into a nearby forest. A river separates the village from the tiger habitat, and the forest where the tiger hid is closer to human habitation.
Villagers immediately alerted the forest department and police, and a search for the tiger began around 8am on Thursday.
After two hours of combing, the team spotted the tiger beside the creek. As they shouted, it leapt into the creek and entered the forest.
Explaining the overnight vigil, Usman Mollah, a member of the 18-strong tiger response team, said bursting crackers is a standard method to drive tigers out of villages. “This is a method we follow. The crackers are burst late into the night. Around 8am, we went to check again and found the pugmarks on the riverbank toward the forest. This indicated the tiger had left,” he said.
Usman added that if the tiger had stayed back, they would have had to set up a cage with bait to trap the animal. Residents said nets were installed to prevent the tiger from venturing into nearby villages from its hideout. Once it was confirmed that the tiger had returned to the forest, the nets were dismantled.
“But it can return again,” said Usman, a resident of the nearby Bhasha Gurguria village.
The forest department has identified three panchayat areas in Kultali under Maipith Coastal police station as “vulnerable,” where tiger intrusions are more likely.
These panchayats include villages such as Nagenabad, Kishorimohanpur, Ambikanagar, Baikunthapur, Binodpur, Madhya Gurguriya, Purba Gurguriya, Debipur, and Bhubaneswari. Across the river lie forest compartments Ajmalmari 1 and 11 and Herobhanga 9, part of the Raidighi range, one of three tiger ranges in the South 24-Parganas forest division.
The area is protected by a 45km nylon fence.
“The nets have been repaired. We have increased patrolling as well because winter is the time when maximum intrusions happen,” a forest official said.