Forest officials in Uttarakand are seen using an earth-mover to capture a tiger that killed two people.
"Crush it," a voice is heard shouting in a video that shows a tiger being pressed down by an earth-mover, hours before it died near the famous Jim Corbett reserve in Uttarakhand last week.
On Thursday, the tiger had killed two quarry workers in the area. The animal was tranquilised and then caged in an eight-hour operation. It didn't survive the wounds.
In the video that surfaced on the internet on Sunday, the animal is seen, cornered as an earth-mover approaches it.
The rakes then press down on the animal and officials run towards it with a net.
The wounded tiger was taken to the Nainital Zoo nearby for treatment. It died within hours, by late Thursday evening.
According to forest officials, the male tiger had also killed two other tigers in the area as it wanted to establish its dominance over a specific territory. "As the mating season is approaching, even the slightest human interference angers tigers," said Parag Madhukar Dhakate, Forest Conservator.
The officer claimed the earth-mover was used to "scare the tiger away", but that the animal was injured because it broke the windscreen. "Even shots fired in the air failed to deter it," he said.
According to reports, the National Tiger Conservation Authority is sending a fact-finding team to district Ramnagar on Monday to find out why an earth-mover was used to capture a tiger.
The Bengal tiger, India's national animal, is on the list of endangered species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List.
(With inputs from PTI)