Calcutta: The report on the killing of a tiger in a West Midnapore forest has been lying idle with the state forest department for over a month.

The report cited shortage of manpower and indiscriminate hunting festivals as reasons behind the animal's death on April 13.

But wildlife experts said the forest department was to blame for not taking the help of experts from other states.

Bengal's chief wildlife warden had sent the report to the forest department principal secretary, Chandan Sinha, on May 28.

The report is still to be approved. It can be sent to the Centre only if it's approved.

Sinha has since been transferred and Indevar Pandey has taken charge.

Metro contacted Sinha but he refused to say anything. Pandey did not take calls.

The full grown male had strayed into the Lalgarh forest and was first photographed by hidden cameras on March 2.

On April 13, it was killed with spears, arrows and blunt objects by a hunting party in another forest in West Midnapore's Dherua range.

In between, the big cat had been roaming a 30sq km swathe of forests stretching across Jhargram, West Midnapore and Bankura.

From drones to live traps and tranquillising teams, forest officials had tried various techniques to capture the animal but all drew a blank.

After its death, the forest department had lodged an FIR with Gurguripal police station in West Midnapore, naming two people, along with unnamed others. The department filed a complaint in a local court as well. The matter is still to be heard.

Staff crunch

The report speaks of manpower shortage. Various field position vacancies range between 45 and 60 per cent. Forest officials who tried to stop the killing were gheraoed. Three members of the staff, including a woman officials, were manhandled. At least one had to be admitted to hospital.

Hunt at will

April 13, the day the tiger was killed, was one of the days of Shikar Utsav. Arrows, bows, spears, axes and bamboo sticks were found near the body. Medical examination had revealed a broken skull and deep gashes above the left eye and forelimbs.

"There are around 50 days from February to June when hunting parties kill almost anything that moves," Suvrajyoti Chatterjee, a member of the Human and Environment Alliance League, said.

The group has documented such mass huntings for the past couple of years. The tiger was the prized game this year, he said.

Political patronage

Multiple forest officials alleged such hunting festivals thrived because of political patronage.

The efforts to trace the tiger coincided with the panchayat polls. "The political leadership was not ready to antagonise tribal voters," a forest official said.

He said the two named in the FIR had entered the forest, along with a hunting party, on April 13 despite an official ban and were injured by the tiger. "But the police haven't made a single arrest." The two were garlanded and given a hero's welcome once they were discharged from hospital, the official claimed.

Judgement error

The forest official "committed an error of judgement by not pooling in staff from other ranges... on the day of ritualistic hunting, especially when the tiger presence was known in the area", the report said.