Kolkata, Dec 11 (PTI) The image of an animal, believed to be that of a Royal Bengal Tiger, was caught in a camera trap laid at Buxa forest in Alipurduar district of West Bengal in the early hours of Saturday.

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A senior forest official said the image of a striped carnivore was captured on camera laid by the forest department at around 1 am.

The pug mark of the animal resembled that of a full grown Royal Bengal Tiger and was found at the area near a river deep inside the forest, about 20 km from the road, he said.

Expressing happiness over the possibility of a tiger existing in Buxa range, state Forest Minister Jyotipriyo Mallick said a forest department team from Kolkata will reach the area on Monday to examine the pugmarks and scrutinise the image.

Mallick said the state was planning to bring 20 tigers from Assam to Buxa where the existence of big cats was always a possibility, but was not spotted in the past two decades.

A tiger was last spotted in Buxa forest in 1998 but there was no news of any sighting of the animal in the area.

"We will put up a net across a 3 km/3 km area in the area (where the striped animal was camera trapped) and every adult of the families living in the vicinity since 1938 will be given compensation by Centre to make the forest free of human habitation.

"Once the money sanctioned by the Centre reaches us we will be able to persuade those encroaching forest land to leave," he said.

The minister said the state will ensure that animals do not face any threat from humans. "We are committed to protect wild life."

Sunderbans in south Bengal is known to be a habitat for tigers with 95 big cats counted there in last census.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)