A man-eating tiger that unleashed terror across villages in northern India has been shot dead after a 45-day search.
Nicknamed the Sugarcane Tigress for its habit of hiding in plantations, the six-year-old big cat had killed two people and injured five in the past two months.
A massive search operation involving hundreds of forest guards, a helicopter and drones ended on Thursday when it was cornered in a sugarcane field and shot 11 times by sharp-shooters, regional forest representative, Parag Dhakate, said.
The cat had tormented people across 20 villages in the region, meaning children had not attended school and residents rarely went out after dark.
Soon after it was shot dead, jubilant villagers paraded the slain tiger and broke into celebrations.
"Our objective was to capture the tigress and not kill it," Dhakate said.
"We set up eight to 10 cages and made some 26 attempts to tranquilise the animal but it always gave us the slip," he said.
