Wolf that took away infant shot dead in UP's Bahraich; child missing

Bahraich (UP), Dec 13 (PTI) Forest department shooters on Saturday tracked and shot a wolf during a rescue operation at a village in Bahraich district after it allegedly took away a one-year-old girl from her home. The infant, however, is yet to be traced.

Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Ram Singh Yadav said the incident occurred at Kaiserganj tehsil around 3.30 am on Saturday when the wolf took away Ramkumar's one-year-old daughter Arvi from the verandah of their house where she was sleeping with her mother.

Forest department teams launched an extensive search operation using drone cameras and trained shooters to track the wolf and locate the child but due to dense fog, overnight combing failed to yield any results.

After the fog lifted on Saturday afternoon, the search was intensified and the wolf was spotted near a riverbank at Godhiya village, where it was shot dead, the DFO said.

The girl, however, is yet to be traced and search teams are combing the riverbanks and nearby sugarcane fields to locate her, the officer said.

According to the forest department, there had been no previous reports of wolf movement in the village. However, at Mallahanpurwa village about 8 km away, a wolf abducted a four-month-old child on December 7, whose remains were later found in a sugarcane field.

Between November 29 and December 7, three wolf attacks were reported from Mallahanpurwa.

Since September 9, wolf attacks in several villages of Bahraich district have claimed 11 lives, including nine children and an elderly couple, while at least 32 people have been injured.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on September 27 directed the concerned officials to safely rescue the wolves or shoot them if they cannot be captured.

Since then, a large-scale operation involving experts and shooters from other districts and states has been launched in which four wolves have been killed so far. PTI COR CDN ARI