Kashish Jain
Supreme Court refused to entertain a plea on the killing of tigress Avni. The petition had claimed that the tigress in question was not a man-eater. The Court asked her to withdraw the petition else it would dismiss the same.
On Friday, 26th February 2021, the Apex Court was to take up a contempt petition against the Maharashtra Forest Officials in a hearing for the killing of a tigress named Avni in 2018.
The petition had approached the Supreme Court seeking action of contempt action against the officials linked to the death of the tigress, also known as T1.
Sangeeta Dogra, an animal rights activist, is the petitioner who made it extremely clear that the tigress in question was not a man-eater. She had visited the area and had two reasons to believe that wasn’t the case.
In November 2018, the tigress was considered ‘officially’ responsible for the deaths of 13 people in Maharashtra. This was over 2 years and hence, was shot down in the Yavatmal district of the State.
Then a police official confirmed that she had been shot down by a sharp-shooter named Asgar Ali, a civilian in compartment number 149 of Borati forest under the jurisdiction of the Ralegaon police station.
The forest department had claimed at the time that the tigress and her two cubs were responsible for the consumption of 60 percent of a human corpse. This had led to her being declared to be a man-eater.
In September of 2018, the Apex Court had refused to interfere with the Bombay High Court decision of the Bombay High Court and had said that the forest department will be bound by the order of the High Court.
The officials were to tranquilise the forest and then shift the tigress to a Rescue Centre. Only if they were unsuccessful in executing the aforementioned process, the forest officials could eliminate it by shooting to avoid any further loss to human life.
This incident had outraged a large number of activists, who have alleged that no effort whatsoever was made to tranquilise Avni. They call it murder in cold blood.
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