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Amarjot Kaur and Satinder Pal Singh
Tribune reporters
Chandigarh, January 20
It is the second time in the last 15 years that an animal attacked and killed an interfering visitor at Chhatbir Zoo. This time, it was a trespasser who scaled a 30-foot wall and jumped into the Lion Safari which houses four felines.
Speaking to Chandigarh Tribune, a zoo employee recalled an incident that took place “some 10-15 years ago” when a bear had pulled a visitor into its enclosure after he, under the influence of alcohol, offered to shake hands with the sloth. “I can’t remember the exact date, but when a drunken man tried to shake hands with a bear, he was pulled into the animal enclosure and killed,” said a source from the zoo.
On Sunday, after climbing a 25-foot concrete wall and 5-foot chain-link fence on top of it, an unidentified man had jumped into the zoo’s Lion Safari. Separated by a wall, the Safari area falls in the 25-acre jungle facing the Ghaggar, which flows on the rear of the Safari enclosure. Within minutes, the trespasser was brutally attacked by two lions and in an hour, he succumbed to the fatal injury on his neck.
How the events unfolded
Zoo field director M Sudhagar said he was informed about the incident at 2:20 pm and the rescue operation lasted six minutes. “A member of our patrolling team first noticed the man in the Safari at 2:20 pm and alerted the security management team, headed by range officer Ravinder Singh,” said Sudhagar.
Describing their course of action, he shared that the range officer, Animal Management, Harpal Singh, too reached the spot along with the zoo’s quick response team. “A few zoo keepers, two range officers and three forest guards reached the site in two safari buses. By 2:28 pm, within six minutes, we rescued the man and he was rushed to the hospital instantly,” he said.
Sharing that about 20 people from the zoo were engaged in shifting the wounded man, Sudhagar claimed that the victim was breathing when he was set off to the neighbouring Dera Bassi Civil Hospital, which is 9.2 km from the zoo.
“It took us about 15 minutes to bring the injured man from the Lion Safari to the zoo’s entrance where a PCR awaited us, as we had informed the police already. The investigating officer had reached the spot immediately. Zoo’s block officer Gurmeet Singh and security management guard Kulvinder Singh accompanied the cops and the injured to the hospital while I followed in another car,” he added.
Sangeeta Jain, SMO, Civil Hospital, Dera Bassi, said he was brought dead around 3:30pm. “Aged between 30 and 40, the man suffered severe wounds on his neck and eyes, along with several small scratches on the rest of his body,” said Jain. The zoo authorities have closed the Lion Safari as of now. “It will remain closed till an inquiry is done,” said Sudhagar.
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