A young man visiting a zoo in India’s capital city was mauled to death by a white tiger after he jumped into the animal’s enclosure on Tuesday afternoon, police and zoo authorities said.
Pictures broadcast on Indian television news channels appeared to show the man sitting in one corner of the enclosure folding his hands and pleading with the animal before the tiger pounced on him.
Police identified the victim by a single name, Maksood, and said they were investigating the attack on the man who was in his twenties and lived in Delhi.
The young man had “crossed the stand-off barrier of the white tiger enclosure” by jumping into it, a statement by the zoo’s director Amitabh Agnihotri said. “The staff of the zoo tried to divert the attention of the tiger from the visitor but to no avail. The tiger mauled the visitor who died on the spot,” Mr. Agnihotri said further.
Visitors at the zoo told news reporters at the scene that zoo keepers were unable to tranquilize the cat as it caught the young man’s neck and dragged him around the enclosure.
The National Zoological Park in New Delhi houses over a thousand animals, reptiles and birds. It is open six days a week.
India records deaths caused by animal attacks. More than 7,000 people are killed each year by animals in the South Asian nation, most of them by poisonous snakes.
According to the annual government report, two-thirds of those killed by animals were men.
It is common in India for animals to attack humans as urban areas encroach on their habitat.
