But not that Tuesday at Delhi zoo when it wanted to play with Maqsood
This isn’t the first time people have jumped into tiger enclosures at the National Zoological Park in Delhi. Around ten years ago, in two separate incidents, two men who were allegedly intoxicated jumped into a lion enclosure. And later, when they had been rescued, they said they wanted to know how it felt to be standing in front of a lion.
Tuesday’s bizarre incident of a 20-year-old man called Maqsood being attacked by a white tiger, and being killed by the animal that zoo authorities suspect got confused by the stone-pelting from other visitors, has yielded many versions of the event. Some say the zoo officials arrived late, and couldn’t arrange for a tranquiliser shot. But Riaz Khan, spokesperson for the zoo, says the tiger didn’t give them enough time to follow the protocol, which includes drills and other emergency procedures for such incidents. “It happened in a matter of minutes. The tiger was trying to play with the man, and was affectionate, but when the stone pelting and shouting happened, it attacked the man,” he says.
A video that has gone viral on social network sites shows the victim pleading in front of the white tiger named Vijay. The animal dragged his body around until it got bored, and left Maqsood in the enclosure where he had fallen after crossing the fence and the moat on Tuesday. Many have blamed the culture of red tapism in the zoo for the incident
According to some reports, the guard had been warning the victim, and the caretaker had been trying to calm the white tiger down. The guard had pulled him back the first time Maqsood tried to cross the fence, but Khan says such horrors happen at zoos. “Basically, a lion is a lazy animal so it doesn’t get up too soon. A tiger is quick, and it was a pet one. It was born here in 2007, and so was its father,” he adds. Besides, preparing a tranquiliser takes time, and depends on the calculation of dosage in accordance with the weight of the animal.
“Within 15 minutes, the tiger had been caged in, and we had dispersed the crowd. The guns were ready but the doctors pronounced the man dead,” says Khan. The man is believed to be a little unstable, mentally.“See, those who want to jump, they will. No protocols can help then,” Khan says.
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