Mounting Panic
When I got back to Sehore and visited Astha the next day. I found the affected village in the grip of rapidly spreading panic. As soon as darkness fell an unwritten came into force over the entire area and no one was seen out of doors. When movement was unavoidable, people moved about in small parties aimed with laathis, Where firearms were available these were brought out of moth balls and old muzzle loaders, matchlocks and shot guns of a vintage seldom seen, began to displayed with much pride in the bazaars and streets of the many small villages which line the Bhopal -Indore highway which went through the man eater's territory. All this however had not the slightest effect on the depredations of the man eater or man eaters as the case proved to be later. The killings continued unabated. All the precautions which people took were useless. This was because the killings always took place in daylight and people can not be made to stay indoors during the day for any length of time.
Before proceeding further it is necessary to gjve the reader a clear picture of the terrain where the man eater was operating Exactly half way between Bhopal and Indore is the roadside village of Dodi, situated on the banks of the Dudhi river. If this village were taken as the centre of a circle of a radius of about 15km it would fairly enclose the territory where the man eater was active. The most remarkable feature of this area is the undulating plateau which starts at the village of pagaria chor a few mile south west of Ashta and continues for about 10kms, ending in the village of Dodi. As one stands at the summit of the ghat before descending to Dodi one can see a vast panorama of rolling hills to the . south and north and wide valley in between, through which flows the broad rocky stream called the Dudhi river. The road ascends gently to the west and fades into the forests of Dewas district on the westetn horizon. The valley of the Dudhi river sports patches of good cultivated land which are interspersed with innumerable rocky uplands of the kind described above. These plateaux and hillocks are well wooded on their sides, though bare on the top, and afford plenty of cover for any wild animal which needs it. Nestling in the valley in the lee of these hills are many small villages whose names the reader would do well to remember. If we take the Indore road, following an east west axis and roughly bisecting the area as our benchmark, then the main villages to the south of the road are Amala Mazzu Gwala, Gwali, Amarpura, Rupahera and Rupeta. To the north are the villages of Dodi, Arnia Gazi, Foodra and Semli Zadid. There are of course many smaller villages whose names can be read on any survey map but are here omitted, but one village which I must mention is the small settlement of paradhikhera, inhabited by the pardhis, an aboriginal tribe who make their living by trapping animals. The chief of their clan, Rajarma Pardhi has to role to play in this story.
As one stands at the top of the Dodi Ghat looking west this whole area can be seen below as one vast amphitheatre, where the green patches of cultivation interspersed with the darker green of wooded hills looks like a patchwork quilt of green .Some of these hills rise abruptly from the flat country, like icebergs becalmed on a tranquil ocean. Many of these hills have flat tops, some are almost half a mile wide and in length stretch for several miles. These gently undulating hill tops with clumps of teak and miscellaneous forest provide ideal hiding places for wild animals, and one can still find hyenas, foxes and other small game and maybe even the odd wolf in these hills. It is a rugged and beautiful terrain where looking for a man eating wolf or wolves is like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. But this was the area where we had to match wits with the man eater of Ashta.
To add to our problems the predominant crop in the area during those days was jowar a crop which grows as tall as a man. The other major crop was sugarcane, which not only grows tall but is also well nigh impenetrable. These fields of jowar and sugarcane thus provided ideal cover in which any animal could lie in wait, close to where human beings lived and worked and after securing a kill should the opportunity arise quickly make a get away.
One other feature of the area should be mentioned, which should have worked in our favour but as thing turned out did not prove to be of much use. This was the general absence of perennial streams and sources of water in the area. The Dudhi river was a purely seasonal torrent. In the rains it was a broad bosomed river but in the months of winter the black basalt of the river bed was bare of any water. Only at certain places, known only to a few locals, there were perennial pools of water in the river bed and these acted as waterholes for the animal population of the area. Considering the general lack of water in the area it would have been reasonable to assume that the man eater would also sooner or later make an appearance one of these waterholes. Proceeding on this assumption we laid careful traps at these plases. Local shikaries sat up over selected bits. Young goats were chosen as bait on the assumption that wolves have a preference for them. But for some unaccountable reasons the man eater did not put in an appearnce at any of these places and all our precautions proved to be of no avail make an appearance at one these waterholes. Proceeding on this assumption we laid careful traps at these places. Local shikaries sat up over selected baits. Young goats were chosen as bait on the assumption that wolves have a preference for them. But for some unaccountable reason the man eater did not put in an appearance at any of these places and all our precautions proved to be of no avail.
I must also say a few words about the town of Ashta. This is a small roadside town situated about 80kms from Bhopal on the Indore Bhopal highway. The only remarkable thing about the town is the small fort which stands by the side of the road overlooking the Parvati river. The walls enclosing the fort have crumbled away, so that all that is now left is a steep sided knoll whose flat top is thickly crowded with a cluster of common looking dwelling units. The Ashta tehsil building forms an imposing edifice among these squlid mud and adobe hovels. This building houses the Ashta tehsil which gives the town its status as a tehsil town and constitutes the main reason for its existence. For the town of Ashta has grown up entirely around the nucleus of administrative offices which are situated there. Further down the road after crossing the river ones comes across a picturesqus building adorned with a fairy tale steeple surmounted with a real weather vane. This is the Astha Rest House a favourite watering hole for ministers and other VIPs on their way to Indore from Bhopal. It was here that I set up my temporary headquarters, in pursuit of the man eater.
Having thus given the reader a picture of the terrain where the whole story takes places let me take up the thread of our narrative at the point where I had left off As I have mentioned when I returned I found the whole Tehsil and more particularly the villages situated in the area described above in a state of mounting panic. The first thing was to allay their panic by talking to the villagers and by providing armed guards at each village. This was unlikely to have any impact on the activities of the man eater but it would still provide the administration with valuable information and would reassure the villagers that the government was keenly alive to their plight and the danger that they were facing. This we immediately proceeded to do. Our first questions were naturally about the kind of animal which was involved and the manner in which the kills had taken place. From the information that we gathered, we were able to reconstruct how the second and third kills took place. At this stage no one knew where or how the first kill had taken place and the second kill was presumed to be the first. It was only later that I was able to reconstruct the circumstances of the first kill and these I shall narrate presently.
The second kill took place in village Foodra. It was third week of November. This village is situated to the south of the Indore road in the lee of the plateau. The hillside here is clothed with a forest of teak. Below the plateau are cultivated fields, in places almost enclosed by the forest. One such field belonged to Ramlal a small farmer of the village. Ramlal's family included a wife and an only son. As the field of Jowar was now in flower and wild animals and birds did their best to damage the crop it was Ramlal's practice to spend the day guarding his crop. On the fateful day this is what he was doing. As the sun began to climb higher in the heavens, his wife and son, a child of about eight appeared, bringing his lunch with them. As the sun was now overhead, Ramlal and his wife sought the shade of a tree to eat their frugal repast. Their son, not being hungry, went off to play at the edge of the forest, As boys will. Picture to yourself the tranquil and pastoral scene, the woods surrounding the green fields, the two parents sharing their meal under the trees and the child playing, within earshot. But tragedy when it strikes, comes unexpectedly. So it was here. The tranquillity of the scene was suddenly shattered by a strangled cry and looking up from their meal, they saw their son being carried off into the forest by an animal. What manner of animal it was they could not say. It was not a tiger or a leopard, but it could have been a hyena, or a wolf, although they had never seen a wolf. It took them a while to collect their wits, but seeing their only child being thus attacked gave them courage and they ran after the animal, brandishing the lathi which Ramlal carried with him. This animal, when it saw its pursuers approaching, ran off into the forest, leaving its victim on the ground. But Ramlal was too late. His son was alread dead, his stomach had been tom open and the entrai1s were hanging out. Disturbed at his approach, the killer had not been able to commence his meal but this was cold comfort to the parents. Ramlal's wife fainted when she saw the horribly mutilated body of her son, but Ramlal remained composed. As he later told me, when recounting the incident, the only emotion he felt was rage. "Sahib", he later told me "this wicked animal which killed my only son, made my wife an invalid for the rest of her life and made my life a burden to me, must be killed . You are our mai baap. I know you have the power of the sarkar with you, and I also know you have a kind heart. This evil animal must fall to your bullet and I shall help you in whatever manner can. May god be with you".
This simple faith proclaimed with such touching confidence in the power of the state, made me doubly determined to spare no efforts to bag the man eater, Ramlal became a useful source of local knowledge and a channel of communication with the villagers. He was to found waiting for me at the Astha Rest House at all hours of the day and night with his axe slung over his shoulder and and insisted on accompanying me on all the journeys after the man eater, though this was not always possible. And there was no happier man in the entire Tehsil when we finally succeeded in ending the reign of terror let loose by the man eaters of Ashta.
The second kill took place in village Amala Majju. This is a largish village south of the Indore road. In those days it was approached only by a very rough cart track, which, as we later learnt was a favourite haunt of the man eater. This road is now a perfectly serviceable metalled road, and one can easily accomplish in about twenty minutes, a journey which then took the better part of an hour. The village is surrounded by clumps of giant tamarind and mango trees, which grow to a stalwart height here. On the outskirts of the village, hard by a grove of mango trees was the humble dwelling of Jhitru, a landless labourer. A Balahi by caste, Jhitru rarned his living by working as an agricultural labourer. To supplement their meagre income his wife also took up such work as become available. When she thus went out to earn her daily bread it was her practice to take her baby with her, as there was no one at home to attend to it. This is what she had done on the fateful day. As she commenced work, she made a makeshift hammock by tying an old sari between two stout saplings that grew at the edge of the field and put her baby in it. There was nothing unusual in this. Many women do this when they go to work and take their babies with them. Even in towns, on construction sites, one can find these make shift hammocks hanging n the shade, while the mother work out in the sun. Juitru's wife had done this without a second thought many a times in the past, and she had no premonition of impending disaster when she left her child in the hammock and went out to work in the field. However when she came back to feed her baby the hammock was empty. By then fear of the man eater was not yet so pervasive and Jhitru's wife at first was at a complete loss as to what might have happened to her baby. She ran to make up a search party to look for his son. The search party at first found nothing. But after a while some one saw a small splash of blood on a leaf. A little further, lying by the side of the track was the child's shirt, caught up in some lantana bushes which grew abundantly there and a little further down the track, at a place where a small spring welled out from a trough, were the splayed. Beyound this there was nothing. One member of the search party. Hariprasad, the local Sarpanch, had head of the earlier kill at Foodra and srories about the strange animal which was killing children. It was he who suggested that the local forest officials at Dodi should be appriached for assistance. As for Jhitru and his wife, they could only mourn the death of their child and wait for such assistance as the government might provide.
The forest officials at Dodi, brought the matter to the knowledge of the Range Officer at Astha, who in turn informed the Divisional Forest Officer at Sehore. It was from the DFO that I first heard the story, which I latter confirmed from the unfortunate Jhitru and his fellow villagers of Amala Majju. According to the forest officials the pug marks belonged to a single male wolf of giant size. Thus was born the legend of the man rater of Astha- of an animal of supernatural size and strenght, of diabolical cunning and horrific cruelty, who always seemed to be one step ahead of those who had set out to kill it.
