On a sweltering June afternoon, traffic ground to a halt on National Highway 44, the busy artery between Seoni and Nagpur. A crowd of over 100 villagers had blocked the road, shouting slogans and demanding accountability from the Forest Department. Their anger boiled over into a five-hour protest, fuelled by frustration over inadequate wildlife management and unfulfilled compensation promises.
The spark for the protest came earlier that day in Bawanthadi village, nearly 423 kilometers from Bhopal, when 18-year-old Sumit Pandre took his cattle to graze near the Pench Tiger Reserve. There, he was fatally attacked by a tiger known locally as Bajirav, which dragged him into the forest.
Later, the Deputy Director of Pench Tiger Reserve, Rajnish Singh, arrived and assured the villagers that Sumit’s family would receive ₹25 lakh in compensation, and the tiger would be relocated.
The father of this Gond tribal youth, Pancham Pandre, was preparing to go to the weekly market 10.5 km away from the village when he received this news. He ran toward the forest with some villagers, where the tiger was still sitting near Sumit’s body. However, upon seeing the villagers, the tiger roared and fled into the jungle. Pancham is as angry with administrative negligence as he is grieved by his son’s death. He curses the Forest Department, saying, “They sent police officers, but forest officials didn’t come.”
Incidents of tigers attacking humans or their livestock are not rare in this area. The Pandre family says that if they don’t protest, the Forest Department won’t even come to check on them. Rakesh Sanodia, Vice President of Seoni Zila Panchayat, who is leading the villagers in the protest, says they have three demands: first, the family of the deceased should receive ₹25 lakh compensation for wild animal attacks. Second, someone from the victim’s family should get a government job so the family can sustain itself. Additionally, they demand that such animals be rescued from residential areas and released in other forests.
One paid, many wait
On November 4, 2024, Chief Minister Dr. Mohan Yadav announced a significant increase in compensation for families of those killed in wild animal attacks, raising the amount to ₹25 lakh. Until then, the compensation stood at ₹8 lakh, which itself had been raised from ₹4 lakh just two years earlier.
Rakesh Sanodia has been continuously organizing protests with villagers in such cases for the past 3 years. Sanodia says that after the Chief Minister’s announcement, only one victim’s family has received the ₹25 lakh compensation.
On November 29, 2024, 20-year-old Krishna Kumar Bhalawi from Bawanthadi village was also killed by the same tiger, Bajirav. Like Sumit, he had gone to the forest in the morning to graze his cattle. Around 12:30 PM, the cattle returned home, but Krishna didn’t. Worried, his family and some forest guards went looking for him. In the forest, they saw a tiger sitting near his body. When the villagers made noise, the tiger ran off, and they found Krishna’s badly injured body at the spot.
Sanodia says that even after the attack, no official from the Forest Department visited the victim’s family. The following day, Rajnish Singh, Deputy Director of Pench National Park, handed over a cheque of ₹8 lakh to the family. But when villagers demanded the full ₹25 lakh, citing the Chief Minister’s recent announcement, forest officials claimed they had not yet received any formal directive from the state government. Frustrated and angry, villagers began a fresh protest outside the gram panchayat office in Pindarai Butte village.
According to Sanodia, as the protest grew more intense, the Deputy Director called him and said he had spoken with the Chief Minister and that the demand for ₹25 lakh compensation had been approved. Following this, the victim’s family received a cheque of ₹10 lakh, and a fixed deposit of ₹15 lakh was arranged two days later.
But things turned out differently for Sumit’s father, Pancham. Unlike Bhalawi, he received only ₹8 lakh in compensation from the Forest Department for his son’s death.
Sitting outside his mud house alongside his wife, Sukhvanti Bai, Pancham remembers his son with heavy eyes. He had always imagined that one day Sumit would take over the farming and care for the cattle and them. But now, with Sumit gone, the couple is left alone to face the rest of their lives.
“We’ll keep working as long as our hands and feet still move,” Pancham says quietly, staring at the ground. “There’s no one left to look after us now. What else can old people like us do?”
Sumit’s mother, Sukhvanti, was at the Kurai market on the day of the incident. She was returning after shopping with some female companions when she learned about this incident on the way. Remembering the time spent with her only son, she says, “I used to share all my talks, sorrows, and joys with him. He used to tell me he wanted to get a job. I don’t like cooking, but whenever he asked me to make something, I would make it. Now that he’s not here, I don’t know whom to talk to.”
She still feels that someday her son will return. “Whenever he came inside the house, he would call out ‘Mummy-Papa.’ Even now it feels like someday he will come back calling out like that.”
About 56 km from Pancham’s house is the Sillari Gate of Pench Tiger Reserve. This part of Pench Tiger Reserve falls under Maharashtra’s boundary. Here, there’s a provision for ₹25 lakh compensation to families of people killed in wild animal attacks. About 9 months before Madhya Pradesh, the Maharashtra government made this announcement in August 2023. Similarly, in Chhattisgarh, a neighboring state of Madhya Pradesh, the compensation for this is ₹6 lakh. In Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Gujarat, ₹5 lakh compensation is given for the death in a wild animal attack.
Data, Deaths and Delay
India is home to 75% of the world’s tigers (Panthera tigris). According to the 2022 All India Tiger Estimation Report, India has a total of 3,682 tigers. Of these, the highest number – 785 tigers – are in Madhya Pradesh. Between 2018 and 2022, the number of tigers in the state increased rapidly. In these 4 years, 259 tigers increased, which is more than the total number of tigers in the state in 2010 (257).
People who have been victims of such attacks in different villages of Seoni say that human-tiger conflict has increased in the past 3-4 years. However, according to an answer given in Lok Sabha on December 18, 2023, between 2018 and 2022, a total of 18 deaths occurred in tiger attacks in Madhya Pradesh. Of these, 11 deaths occurred in 2020 alone, while in other years, 1 or at most 2 people fell victim to tigers.
An assessment of tiger attack fatalities and compensation distribution in the state reveals that victims have not consistently received compensation. In 2018, the compensation amount was set at Rs 4 lakh per victim. During this period, the state distributed a total of Rs 12.08 lakh, which works out to Rs 6.04 lakh per incident. However, the two people killed in tiger attacks in 2021 received no compensation at all. Similarly, despite two fatal incidents in 2022, only Rs 4 lakh was distributed in total.
However, in attacks by wild animals, including tigers, elephants, and other animals, 395 people have lost their lives in the state in the past 5 years. For this, the state government has given a total of ₹20 crore 45 lakh 93 thousand 407 as compensation. Deputy Director of Pench Tiger Reserve, Rajnish Singh, tells us that last year in Madhya Pradesh, 71 deaths occurred from wild animal attacks. Of these, only 19 deaths were from tiger attacks.
Despite the promises, Pancham Pandre is still waiting for the remaining ₹17 lakh of the ₹25 lakh compensation. When asked why victims haven’t received the full amount announced by the Chief Minister, Deputy Director Rajnish Singh explains, “Last year, the Honorable Chief Minister made the announcement… Initially, there was no clarity on the directives, but now it’s clear. ₹8 lakh will be provided immediately as relief, and the remaining ₹17 lakh will come from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund through a separate proposal.”
Families seek safety
However, there’s still no clear timeline for when this system will actually take effect. Singh maintains that a proposal has been sent to secure the pending ₹17 lakh for Sumit’s family, but for now, they continue to wait.
But with the death of 2 people from the same village in the past 7 months, fear of tigers and anger toward the Forest Department have accumulated in the minds of Bawanthadi residents. From a security perspective, the Forest Department has also installed a ‘Jhatka Machine‘ (local calling for Solar Fence) in a section between the village and forest. However, this effort doesn’t seem to reassure the villagers.
Pancham informs us that villagers have also discussed the possibility of relocating the village with the Forest Department. He says 21 families in the village are ready to settle elsewhere. However, they demand that they should be given ₹15 lakh compensation and as much land as they currently have in the village. Sanodia says: “The Forest Department is talking about giving us a total of ₹15 lakh compensation, while we would need at least 5 acres of land for farming.”
Sukhvanti herself wants her family to be given proper compensation and settled elsewhere. She says, “Incidents are happening every 8-15 days, so we want to leave. What’s the point of staying here and dying?” However, villagers say they will only leave their village if they are settled together in the same settlement.
But apart from Bawanthadi village, people affected by such incidents continue to demand ₹25 lakh compensation rather than rehabilitation. It remains to be seen whether this demand will become a norm on the ground. Meanwhile, the Forest Department has caught the tiger that attacked Sumit and sent it to Van Vihar National Park located in Bhopal.
For Pancham and Sukhvanti, now elderly and alone, the delayed compensation is not just about money, it’s about dignity, acknowledgment of their loss, and their only hope for financial security in their remaining years. Sukhvanti’s haunting words, “I don’t know whom to talk to,” capture the profound isolation that extends beyond personal loss to institutional abandonment.
The Pandre family’s ordeal exposes the harsh reality that policy announcements mean little without robust implementation mechanisms. Until the gap between promise and delivery is bridged, families like theirs will continue to suffer twice, first from tragedy, then from a system that fails to honor its commitments when they need it most.
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