Death toll rises to 6 in mysterious animal attack in MP's Barwani

Barwani (Madhya Pradesh) [India], June 4 : A mysterious animal had attacked residents of a village in Madhya Pradesh's Barwani district on May 5 leaving 17 people injured and so far six people succumbed to injuries in the incident since then, including the two recent death, an official said.
While the remaining 11 others are still undergoing treatment and strictly being monitored by the health department on a regular basis. On the contrary, the forest department is continuously searching for the animal but yet to trace.
Barwani Chief Medical and Health Officer (CMHO) Anita Singare told ANI, "An unknown wild animal bite 17 people in Nimbai village in the district on the night of May 5 last month. Of these 17 people, six succumbed to injuries while the remaining people are under observation. Our team is continuously engaged in the treatment and daily follow up is being observed. One of the injured is admitted to district hospital."
Post mortem of the deceased were performed and sample from the patient recently died on June 2 has been collected and it will be sent to Pune for further examination, she added.
According to health department, three people died on May 23, namely Raili Bai (60), Mansharam (50), Sur Singh (50), while Sadee Bai (60) died on May 27, Chain Singh (50) on June 1 and Sunil (40) on June 2.
Meanwhile, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO, Barwani) Ashish Bansod said, "On May 5, as soon as we received information about an unknown animal bite around 17 people of Nimbai village, our team immediately became active and began search in the area. The village is around 4.5 km away from the forest area so we initiated the search in forest as well as in the village to find that animal."
In the preliminarily examination, the way animal attacked around 17 villagers at a time, it seemed to be infected of rabies, and people also described it some dog-like animal. But despite the search nothing about such an animal was found, he added.
"If the animal was rabies infected then it would die within 3-4 days. We tried to find its body, carcass but we could not get anything. We have checked the entire area thoroughly but did not find any trace, evidence or pugmarks of the animal so far," DFO said.
Speaking about the compensation from the state government, the officer said that there is a provision Rs 8 lakh from the government to be given to next to kin of the deceased and process for the same has already been initiated. Soon the family will get the compensation.
Additionally, the injured victims will receive free treatment and a daily assistance of Rs 500 in case of admitted to hospital.
"We put our all efforts to find the animal at all possible places. Even we searched with the help of villagers as well wherever they suggested place but didn't find any clue. I again urge the villagers if they find anything do share the info we will take action into the matter," he added.