West Bengal: 12 fishermen held for hounding a Royal Bengal Tiger in Sunderbans

"Based on a complaint lodged by the state forest department, we have nabbed twelve fishermen from Sundarbans for poking a tiger, which was crossing  Raimangal river, with a bamboo or stick from their trawler," a local police official told IBNS.

Earlier on June 29, a video footage came to public where it was seen that few fishermen were poking a mature Royal Bengal Tiger with a bamboo or stick while the big cat was swimming across a river in  the Sundarbans.

Examining the video clip, the forest department identified those fishermen as well as their trawler and lodged a complaint with the Sundarban Coastal Police Station on July 2.

"We had received the video footage on last Friday (June 29) and after examining it, we found that the tiger was swimming on its own way and the fishermen drove their trawler straight towards it with an intention to hound the animal," a forest department official told IBNS.

"After lodging a complaint with the local police against the 12 fishermen and the owner of 'MV Jaba', we assisted the cops in finding them," the officer added.

The fishermen, who have been charged under few sections of Wildlife Protect Act, will be produced before a local court in Kolkata's Alipore on Thursday.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)