A 65-year-old man was killed by a wild animal in the Sampurnanagar forest range of the Dudhwa Buffer Zone after he went to a nearby field to relieve himself, officials said on Saturday.
The victim, Chandrika Prasad of Vrindavan Colony, was found partially eaten in a sugarcane field late Friday night, with his family claiming a tiger was responsible.
Officials said the species will be confirmed after examining pugmarks at the site.
The family members of the deceased said when he did not return late on Friday night, they looked for him and found his slippers in a sugarcane field.
Claiming that the attacker was a tiger, the family members said the big cat fled into the nearby reserved forests as it got scared of the crowd.
Kirti Chaudhary, Deputy Director, Dudhwa Buffer Zone, confirmed the casualty.
She told PTI, "After the analysis of the pugmarks at the spot, it would be ascertained if the errant big cat was a tiger or a leopard. The body of the deceased has been sent for a post-mortem examination. Further steps would be carried out after that."
The incident followed the killing of a 10-year-old girl, Tinkle, from the Khushipur Patihan village in a leopard's attack on Thursday night in Dudhwa Buffer Zone. The girl had gone to serve food to her grandfather at his shop in the village, where a leopard hiding in a sugarcane field attacked her.
Local villagers chased the leopard, following which the leopard fled into the neighbouring jungle, leaving the girl critically injured in her neck. She succumbed to her injuries at the community health centre in Pallia.