A three-month-old girl was killed while an elderly woman was injured in separate incidents of alleged animal attacks in Uttar Pradesh's Bahraich, officials said on Friday.
Family members of the victims claimed that the attacks were carried out by wolves, though the forest department is yet to confirm.
In the first incident, an unidentified wild animal took away Dinesh Tiwari's infant daughter, Sandhya, from the verandah of their house in Gorwah village of the Mahsi Tehsil around 3.30 am when she was sleeping with her mother, Kaiserganj Range Officer Omkar Nath Yadav said.
Upon receiving information, forest department officials, along with police, reached the spot and launched a search using a drone equipped with a thermal camera. On Friday morning, her decapitated head was found in a field near the house, he said.
The rest of the body parts were by the unidentified animal, the officer added.
Yadav said that after the incident, a large number of villagers gathered around the area due to which the animal's footprints were wiped away.
A post-mortem report will ascertain the identity of the animal. Efforts are also being made to capture the animal by setting up a cage trap near the village, he said.
The second attack occurred in the Babhanwa hamlet of the Kaisarganj tehsil on Thursday evening when 60-year-old Shiv Pyari was feeding her cow in the courtyard of her house.
She was injured after a wild animal attacked her from behind. Shiv Pyari was initially taken to the local primary health centre from where she was referred to Bahraich Medical College for further treatment, Range Officer Yadav said.
Her condition is stated to be stable, he added. Her son Rakesh Kumar and grandson Rajkumar claimed to media persons at the hospital that "the wild animal in last night's incident was a man-eating wolf".
They also claimed that they had seen the attacking animal, he said.
Additional Chief Conservator of Forests, Uttar Pradesh (Central Region) Renu Singh and Conservator of Forests of Devipatan Divison Simran M inspected Paragpurwa village of the district, where a four-year-old girl's mutilated body was found on September 9 after she was allegedly attacked by a wild animal.
Yadav further said that five cage traps have been installed at the sites of the attacks to capture the wild animal, with special combing operations underway at all the places using drone cameras and with the help of experts.
Villagers are being made aware to stay out of areas where sugarcane crop is abundant. They are also being advised not to leave their homes alone and keep the doors of their houses closed and not to sleep outside the house, the range officer further said.
Between August 28 and September 12, two children have died and five villagers have been injured in seven incidents of attack by unidentified wild animals, officials said.
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