In a bizarre incident, more than 10 frontline staff of the Forest Department were locked up inside a large cage meant to trap a tiger in Bommalapura village, located in the buffer zone of Bandipur Tiger Reserve, on Tuesday (September 9, 2025).
The cage had been placed by the department after villagers reported pug marks of a tiger near their fields. However, when the big cat did not fall into the trap and no further combing operations were taken up, angry villagers turned on the field staff.
The tiger was apparently sighted sometime ago in the field of a local farmer named Gangappa while there were also cattle kills reported from the area, which falls in the Gundlupet taluk of Chamarajanagar district.
The villagers alleged that the department was not making sincere efforts to capture the tiger and accused officials of relying only on the cage. “We had complained repeatedly, but no combing was carried out. Just placing a cage is not enough,” said a local farmer.
Irked by delayed response
