Dayalpurva has no roads, electricity, pucca houses or toilets. The politicians never come. But the wolves do. Left to fend for themselves, the villagers allow themselves a laugh at their helplessness, curse the government and the panchayat, stay awake the whole night to protect themselves and finally accept their fate.
Dayalpurva is a hamlet of around 20 houses under Manjhara Taukali village in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district. The huts that line the lanes of the hamlet are surrounded by standing paddy and sugarcane crops — an ideal hideout for the wolves.
On Tuesday afternoon, a wolf pounced on 40-year-old Milky Ram and scratched his shoulders, hands and chest when he was on his way to an agricultural field.
“The attack happened about 100 metres from my house. I yelled for help while fighting the wolf. It ran away when the villagers rushed to my rescue. They took me to Kaisarganj Community Health Centre, where the doctors kept me for a day, administered three injections and asked me to visit the hospital every alternate day for more injections,” Ram told The Telegraph on Wednesday.
Dayalpurva, the last village
“I am lucky to be still alive,” he laughed. “The wolves have attacked five people and six cows in this hamlet. They all survived.”
Ram said the wolves come hunting in a dozen hamlets circled by dense fields and bushes. Like Dayalpurva, there are 16 more hamlets in Manjhara Taukali village that are devoid of roads, streetlights, toilets and pucca houses.
“Even politicians don’t come here to seek votes in panchayat or Assembly elections because we are daily wage earners and don’t have time to go to poll booths. Only a few of us here own land,” Ram said.
Ram’s neighbour Kripal Nishad, 60, said wolves had been spotted multiple times since September in adjoining hamlets such as Nareshpurva, Ichchapurva, Khargipur, Tediya, Baundi and Gandara.
“Of the six people killed by the wolves in Manjhara Taukali, five were residents of these hamlets. Twenty of the 30 cows killed in the village also belonged to these hamlets. The truth is that the government has left us in the lurch,” Nishad rued.
Puja Nishad, 30, said she and her husband alternately kept vigil at night to fend off wolf attacks. “This is the story of every family in Dayalpurva and the other hamlets near the Ghaghara river. We live in terror, and there is no one to help us,” she said.
Puja said chief minister Yogi Adityanath had recently visited Gandhiganj, 2km from Dayalpurva, and announced that the forest department had been directed to shoot the wolves.
“The officers killed a wolf a few kilometres from here. Is it really a solution?” Puja asked.
“Build a road, put up streetlights and construct toilets in every house and see how the wolves disappear from here. When we started keeping awake at night, armed with earthen lamps and lathis, the wolves started attacking us during the day. Wolves will refrain from entering hamlets with well-lit roads,” she said.
Former panchayat chief of Manjhara Taukali, Fateh Bahadur Yadav, said the hamlets near the Ghaghara were more vulnerable to wolf attacks because the animals were losing their homes along the river.
“Thick bushes along the river were cleared for illegal sand mining. As the sand was removed from the banks, water took its place and drove away the wolves, who usually prefer to dig dens in sandy soil. Now they are straying into villages and attacking humans and livestock,” Yadav said.
“If we cannot stop illegal sand mining, we should at least develop these hamlets. The problem will escalate if we don’t address it now,” he warned.
On why he didn’t do anything during his tenure as the panchayat chief, Yadav said: “I can give an example. Some people came to our village and asked each resident to pay ₹50,000 if they wanted pucca houses under the government schemes. Those who could afford a pucca house are safe from the wolves. Those who live in huts, most of which have no doors, are exposed to the danger.”
Alok Yadav, a member of the block development council of Manjhara Taukali, accused the former and the current village panchayat chiefs of neglecting the 17 hamletspopulated by the Nishad community, who didn’t vote forthe Yadavs.
“I am also a Yadav, but I am not happy with the attitude of the state government and the panchayat leaders,” Alok said.
“The wolves have become more aggressive,” he added.
Manjhara Taukali panchayat chief Kiran Yadav’s husband Deep Narayan Yadav said they had taken up the matter with the government.
“There are proposals to build toilets and install streetlights in the affected areas. We will start implementing the plans soon,” he said.
Ram Singh, divisional forest officer of Bahraich, pointed to a “behavioural change” among the wolves. “The wolf is a nocturnal animal, but it is attacking humans during the daytime now. Earlier, they mostly used to prey on smaller animals, but are now attacking humans.”
Singh said the forest department team found it challenging to chase the wolves because they were fast swimmers. “They can easily cross the river and go to the other side, where there is quicksand. It is very difficult for us to access the area to trap them. But we are trying our best to deal with the situation as soon as possible,” he said.
Raju Yadav of Baundi village, who was attacked and injured by a wolf on October 2, said the wolf menace would subside during summer. “Some people will then pat their backs and say that they solved the problem,” he said.