Indian young man killed by a tiger at the zoo

In September 2014 Maqsood fell into a white tiger’s enclosure at Delhi zoo, India. After a few minutes the tiger attacked and killed him, in front of dozens of visitors.

The incident

Maqsood was a young Indian man of about 20, sources say between 19 and 22, who lived in the Anand Parbat neighborhood of Delhi and worked in a factory. According to some newspapers he had long been obsessed with tigers and often went to see them at the national zoo.

On September 23, 2014, around 1 pm, he was, as many times before, in front of enclosure number 8, home to Vijay, a seven-year-old, 200-kilo male white tiger, one of the zoo’s star attractions.

Maqsood climbed over the barrier that keeps visitors at a distance and fell, or jumped, into the enclosure’s moat, about 20 feet deep.

According to the zoo, a guard had repeatedly warned him to move away. Vijay, who was some distance away, immediately approached the young man. Maqsood stayed on the ground, cowering in fear, and according to one witness, with folded hands he seemed to be begging the tiger to spare him.

The animal was born and raised in the zoo, had never lived in the wild and did not attack at once. It watched him with curiosity, barely touched him with a paw and for a few minutes just stood there looking at him.

Then visitors and a guard started throwing stones and making noise, thinking they would frighten the tiger away from Maqsood. They got the opposite result.

The tiger became agitated, struck the young man with its paw and seized him by the neck, dragging him into the enclosure. Then it dropped his lifeless body in a corner of its space. Maqsood died on the spot.

The zoo’s responsibility

After the incident the zoo managers were heavily criticized. The zoo maintained that the fences complied with the rules, that staff had raised the alarm by radio and tried to distract the tiger, and that Maqsood himself had climbed over the barrier.

Many, however, wondered why, given the time that passed between the fall and the attack, no one managed to intervene, for example with a tranquilizer gun. And instead of helping, many onlookers simply filmed the scene with their phones.

The zoo’s curator defended Vijay: “Vijay was born and bred here and in all these years he has never shown any signs of aggression. It is absolutely wrong to call him a maneater”.

The tiger was kept under observation for a few days, but was not put down. In fact, in the following days the zoo’s visitors doubled: many wanted to see the tiger that had killed a man.

Why did Maqsood enter the tiger enclosure?

We will never know for sure whether Maqsood slipped or jumped on purpose. Some witnesses said he lost his balance, while the zoo maintained he jumped in despite the warnings.

His parents said the young man had long suffered from mental health problems.

The images of the young man cowering in front of the tiger went around the world and were broadcast by many TV channels, an added pain for his family. Sadly it was not the only case: in 2019, at the same zoo, another young man entered a lion’s enclosure, but fortunately he was rescued.

Sources

• The Tribune – White tiger mauls 20-yr-old to death at Delhi zoo
• The Weekend Leader – White tiger mauls, kills youth in Delhi Zoo
• The Peninsula – White tiger kills man in Delhi Zoo
• Darpan – White tiger no maneater: Delhi Zoo
• The News Minute – People turn up at Delhi zoo to see Vijay