the dusk had fallen a small group of graziers was on its way home with cattle when a tiger emerged from a wheat field and charged ferociously at the herd the bewildered animals ran helterskelter but the tiger did not touch any of them not even the calves that could have been grabbed easily its intention was to pick a herdsman and the tiger had set its eyes on bashir bangalikallu lodh an eyewitness recalls that the tiger not just ignored the calves passing by but also slipped through the underbelly of a cow to launch the final spring on the man who was riding a buffalo the tiger pulled bashir down and dragged him inside a sugarcane field that night local residents couldnt locate the body of bashir bangali the next day bloodsoaked clothes were found about a mile away from the spot where the man had been attacked the tiger had devoured the entire bodythis was 1997 the banbasa maneater had announced its presence and how this killing gives an insight into the behaviour of a maneater the feat might appear mind boggling but a determined maneater follows this pattern while executing an attack moreover if not disturbed by groups out to retrieve the body tigers eat at ease and do not leave anything behind not even leather footwear and clothes remarks prof rahul shukla former honorary wildlife warden of kishanpur wildlife sanctuary and dudhwa national parktwo decades later in 2017 prof shukla observed a similar pattern while following the adauli maneater in pilibhit hari das a contractor recalls i was returning home with a group of canestrippers one evening when we saw a tiger at the other side of a ploughed field we clapped to see the tigers reaction and it charged at us it was a terrifying spectacle i had only a few seconds to save myself the big cat was about to pounce on us i jumped behind the trunk of a tree it was about to pin down one of the canestrippers when a burly man from the group mutkau tewari fiercely swung his lathi and hit the tiger on its nose with full force we saw blood oozing out of the animals nostrils it gasped at this unexpected retaliation and roared in pain the tigers big head lowered as it buckled and then it vanished into a maize field says daswhile the banbasa maneater continued with its pattern of attack till it was caught in a wire snare by the natives and done away the adauli mankiller learnt the lesson of its life as this unpleasant experience was etched in its memory it never attacked humans in groups though it killed five more persons before moving into the jungles of uttarakhandwhen people hear the word maneater jim corbett and the socioecological context of his times instantly come to their mind they are unaware that a new type of healthy maneater has emerged in terai which has no physical deformity to resort to maneating