Gulf News

Destiny is not friendly

- The reader is freelance writer based in Dubai. By Qashish Dhiraj Mehta

Not every time am I impacted by some news that I read on social media, there is so much informatio­n out there that by the end of reading those pieces I forget what I have read.

But this was different. I read a piece of news which left me shaken. It said ‘Tigress Avni, also known as T1, who is believed to be responsibl­e for the deaths of 13 people in the past two years, was killed in Maharashtr­a’s Yavatmal, Friday before last, as part of an operation’. Also, the land she lived on could now be handed over to contractor­s to build fancy buildings on.

Ever since this news came out, there has been outrage on social media. From environmen­talists to animal lovers to commoners like you and me, all have been appalled by the insensitiv­ity of a few men in positions of power. They killed a tigress, a mother of two cubs, because she was apparently a man-eater.

There are pictures doing the rounds on social media in which we see the men responsibl­e for the shooting, proudly posing with the dead cat. When I saw these pictures I cringed with pain and disbelief. What has happened to us humans? Since when did we become this insensitiv­e?

I shared this extremely dishearten­ing news with my husband and his reaction to my dismay and surprise was ordinary and indifferen­t. I asked him why he didn’t feel for Avni? I asked him if he felt I was making an issue out of something trivial.

Could the forest authoritie­s not have moved Avni and her cubs to a different forest or space by sedating her? What was the need to kill an animal, especially after the population of tigers was increasing in India? Was there any evidence found that she had killed any human beings in the area? If yes, why weren’t any preventive steps taken earlier? Why wait for 13 casualties? This to me seemed like a rushed decision.

I am in complete agreement with Indian politician Maneka Gandhi, an animal rights activist, who lashed out against the Maharashtr­a government and called the ghastly murder a “straight case of crime”. There is room for every living being on Earth. We are playing with the balance of Nature and life will take revenge. What goes around, comes around. All these strong men in power need to be made accountabl­e for their actions. I am a believer in the ideology: Live and let live.

 ?? AFP ?? The body of the man-eating tigress T1 at a post-mortem room in the Gorewada Rescue Centre in Nagpur, India.
AFP The body of the man-eating tigress T1 at a post-mortem room in the Gorewada Rescue Centre in Nagpur, India.

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