MF AHMAD
Daltonganj, Jan 2: Mystery shrouds the death of 60-year-old Mushtaq Khan of Checha village under Barwadeeh police station in Latehar. The family of Khan persists the old man died due to an attack by wildlife on Sunday morning. The suspected family leopard said sources.
According to sources, the family further insists on ex gratia relief and a job for one in the family on compassionate grounds.
The local sitting Congress MLA Ramchander Singh speaking to lagatar24.com today said, “The personnel of the Palamu Tiger Reserve (PTR) have collected samples of pug marks. It is to be verified and ascertained as to whose pug marks are there.”
The Congress MLA further said that the PTR personnel are trying to find out if the pug marks are of a hyena or any other wild animal.
He said there was a huge protest against this incident in which people raised anti-forest slogans etc.
“I spoke to the deputy director North division of the tiger reserve Palamu Kumar Ashish in this connection and asked him to look into the case,” said the MLA.
The deceased’s tongue was missing while all other parts were intact. It was confirmed by the family and the Congress MLA.
“Jeebh nahi tha. Gardan tod diya hai,” (Tongue was missing and neck has been broken) the MLA stated.
The missing tongue has raised eyebrows. There is no carnivore which has any speciality in just pulling out the tongue without leaving any bite mark on the cheek, lips, nostrils, eyes, eyebrows, forehead etc.
No carnivore has any such clinical precision while dragging out the tongue as otherwise how the tongue is missing from the body of the deceased, quipped the deputy director of the North division of the PTR Kumar Ashish.
Ashish said the pug marks are said to be of dog species and not of the cat species and hence leopard is ruled out and for hyena, there should be grievous injuries on the body of the deceased which the post-mortem conducting doctor has not found.
A PTR personnel who saw the pug marks said the crowd of people just overrun these marks so badly in the rush of moving here and there that ascertaining its species is just not possible.
Sources said the PTR as a gesture of humanitarian aid gave the bereaved family a sum of rupees 10,000 for the burial etc.
The Barwadeeh police registered the case on January 1 stating that death ‘appears to have been caused by the leopard’. The police have maintained that it took the body ‘from the house of the deceased’.
Lagatar24.com correspondent spoke to Dr Sunil Kumar Bhagat of the Latehar Sadar Hospital who had conducted the post-mortem of Khan on Sunday.
According to Dr Bhagat, there was no mark of any external injury like that of sharp teeth bites on the body. He said there were some minor abrasions.
He added that the hyoid bone was found fractured which is in the midline of the neck.
“It is a suspected case of strangulation. There is no external injury caused by bites of any carnivore found on the body in the post-mortem,” opined another senior doctor and deputy superintendent of the Sadar hospital Dr Arvind Kumar.
He said doctors or doctors doing post-mortems go by the findings of the body and not what the people cry for. He added that their doctor in the post-mortem didn’t find marks of injuries inflicted by carnivores on the deceased’s body.
Sources said the case is open to police investigation to find out if the death is man-made or caused by an animal.
The deceased was buried on Sunday, informed the Congress MLA Ramchander Singh who said, “The poor man died and his bereaved family should be given ex gratia relief as the family maintains the man is a victim of wildlife attack.”
