Visitor injured in bear attack in Assam zoo

Guwahati, Feb 7 (UNI) Once is not enough to learn a lesson. A visitor was injured in a bear attack in Guwahati zoo today.

The bear attack came within a span of two months after another visitor was killed by a tiger when the man had tried to click photographs of the caged animal.

Zoo officials informed that one Azhar Ali (23) had jumped into the Himalayan black bear enclosure. Though other visitors spotted him, they did not raise any alarm, assuming him to be a zoo employee. The enclosure houses three bears, of which two were locked in the cage at the time of the incident. Eyewitnesses said Azhar roamed around the enclosure for some time before the third bear attacked him.

Zoo workers rushed to the enclosure and chased away the bear. The person received grievous injuries on his right leg and was admitted to Guwahati Medical College and Hospital.

Zoo officials suspect that Azhar was mentally deranged as he is reported to have moved precauriously close to the elephants prior to the bear attack. He had even attempted to feed grass to a chained elephant in the zoo. The elephant, newly brought to the zoo from the wild, is yet to be fully domesticated and had tried to attack Azhar.

Azhar had come to the bear enclosure after the incident with the elephant. He is a resident of Chandmari Railway Colony, originally hailing from Goalpara district.

UNI SG KK RN1950