Forest officials on alert after tiger sighting in Vemulawada Mandal

Panic spread in Chekkapalli village in Telangana’s Sircilla district after locals reported seeing a tiger crossing a road at night. Forest officials are checking CCTV footage and searching for pugmarks. Leopard attacks in nearby areas have also raised concerns.

Hyderabad: Panic prevailed in Chekkapalli village and its surroundings in Vemulawada mandal of Sircilla district following reports of a tiger movement on Saturday night.

Some local people claimed to have spotted the tiger crossing the main road at night. On information, the local police and the forest officials reached the village and checked the footage of the closed-circuit cameras and noticed a big tiger-like animal crossing the road.

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“The footage captured by the surveillance cameras is not clear, so at this stage we cannot confirm tiger’s presence in the area. We are checking for the pugmarks in the surroundings and waiting for some more concentrated information about its movement in the area,” said a forest department official.

The Chekkapalli village is located around 20 km away from the Gopalraopally village, where tiger’s movement was last reported.

Local villagers, on their part, are on alert following reports of tiger movement in the area. The tiger was last spotted in the hills at Gopalraopally and China Lingapur villages, in Thangallapally mandal. A team of forest officials are camping in the villages.

Also, leopard movement was reported in a few mandals in the Sircilla district. A few days ago, a leopard attacked and killed a calf at Hunamakka village in Vemulawada. Prior to it, leopards attacked cattle near Dharmaram village in Konaraopet mandal in the district.