MANIT Bhopal to fence gaps in boundary walls after two tigers enter campus

An official said on Monday that after two tigers penetrated its expansive campus in the previous two weeks, the Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT) in the Madhya Pradesh city of Bhopal has begun patching the cracks in its border wall.

On October 3, a tiger with the name of T-123-4 broke into the facility, murdered two cows, and attacked two further cows. An earlier report from a forest authority stated that it is thought to have left the campus a few days ago. Alok Pathak, the divisional forest officer for Bhopal, told PTI that this feline’s activity was first observed on Monday in the Kerwa area, 12 kilometres from MANIT. According to officials, a second tiger that may have infiltrated the institute between October 8 and 9 was apprehended on Sunday and released in the Satpura Tiger Reserve in Narmadapuram. Tigers from the Ratapani Wildlife Sanctuary, which are dispersed in the nearby Bhopal districts of Raisen and Sehore, travel through the Kerwa region of the state capital. For a better visibility, we’ve requested that certain campus foliage be cut down by the institute’s administrators, according to Pathak.

The institute occupies 650 acres, including 100 acres of thickets, and is surrounded by residential areas. According to officials, over 5,000 hostellers and 1,000 kin of institute personnel reside on campus. According to the institute’s public relations officer Dr. Amit Ojha, “We are fencing the gaps in the boundaries. The work was started on Sunday itself. After this, a concrete boundary wall will be constructed wherever it is needed.” In light of the tiger’s presence, the institute had announced a midterm break for roughly 5,400 undergraduate students from October 11 to 30 as opposed to such breaks generally given in December, they said.

For the next three to four days, the 16 trap cameras installed in MANIT won’t be removed by the forest department, according to Pathak. He added that the three cages with bait that had been placed on the campus would also not be taken down and that the area would continue to be watched for the ensuing few days.