The Sunderbans tiger at Alipore zoo. Picture by Amit Datta

A wounded tiger captured from the Sunderbans six months ago and treated at Alipore zoo set off for Khayerbari Tiger Rescue Centre, in Jalpaiguri, on Thursday evening.

The animal, fondly called Thyangkata by the zoo staff as he had lost one of his legs, left the veterinary hospital of the zoo on a minitruck around 5.30pm.

The tiger weighed 250 kg and it took around 20 men to lift the cage on the vehicle. It was calm while being taken away from the hospital but once on the truck, it roared and leapt towards the crowd around the cage.

The carriers panicked and two of them lost their balance and fell from the truck. Another suffered a knee injury after being hit by the iron rods of the cage.

“Baghta tinte pa niyeo nachiye chharche...,” laughed an injured carrier, resting on the shoulders of a colleague. The animal calmed down minutes later, after which the cage was covered by tarpaulin sheets.

Zoo officials said the tiger had come to the zoo on February 22 with critical wounds on its left hind leg, right foreleg and in other parts of the body. Doctors at the zoo had to amputate the left hind leg and treat the animal for anaemia and septicaemia. After six months of medication and a healthy diet of 12 kg buffalo meat daily, the tiger is now “clinically fit.”

“But since it has lost one leg, it can never hunt. So, we have decided to send the tiger to the rescue centre,” said zoo director Subir Chowdhury. At the centre, the animal will stay in a 20ft x 12ft cell. “The life span of a tiger in the wild is 15 years. In captivity, it can live up to 18 years,” said an official.