One of the country's most photographed tigers, thanks to stripes on its forehead which seemed to make the words "CAT" and "PM", has been relocated to a park-cum zoo in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh after old age and loss of territory made it look for easy prey among humans.
Munna, a 16-year-old Royal Bengal tiger, was shifted to an enclosure in the Van Vihar National Park-cum-Zoo here after being brought from Kanha Tiger Reserve in eastern Madhya Pradesh where it had killed a 14-year-old girl on October 18.
It had also attacked a man in the thicket close to the Kanha Tiger Reserve earlier this month, officials said.
"Munna will adjust to the new environs slowly and gradually. Right now, it has been housed in an enclosure. It has been looking around curiously," Van Vihar veterinarian Atul Gupta said.
T-17, the official identification tag of Munna, would become a tourist magnet in Van Vihar the way he was in Kanha, Gupta said, adding that the "CAT" and "PM" formed by his stripes on the forehead were the main cause of his legend.
Detailing Munna's predicament in the wild, Gupta said old age led to it being forced out of its territory by younger rivals.
Inability to hunt prey due to old age then led to it attacking humans, far easier prey, he said.