Wild boar(Representative image)

SHAHJAHANPUR: In a bizarre incident, a group of wild boars attacked a couple of farmers in Shahjahanpur ’s Lalpur area on Wednesday night and chewed the private parts of one of them while injuring the other.

The victim, Ram Manohar , 55, had gone to answer nature’s call in a sugarcane field when a fully-grown adult wild boar suddenly emerged from bushes and attacked him.

Local residents rushed to him after hearing his shrieks and rescued him as they drove the animal away with sticks.

Manohar, parts of whose thigh and private parts were chewed by the boar, was taken to the local community health centre from where he was referred to the district hospital.

In the meanwhile, the group of wild boars rushed out of the cane field and injured another villager, identified as Ram Sahay, who was sitting outside his house.

Panic gripped the area where villagers kept vigil throughout the night with stick and torches.

Dr Sandeep Verma , superintendent of health centre, said, “The injuries on the victim’s private parts were serious. Hence, we referred him to the district hospital.”

Balhar Singh, a local farmer, told TOI, “Wild boars are a huge menace for us as they are fond of sugarcane and often destroy our entire crop. It is extremely difficult to take them out of the field if they come in a herd. There are no carnivores in the adjacent forest area and this is why their population is increasing day by day.”

Divisional forest officer Manoj Khare said, “It is an unfortunate incident, but there is nothing much we can do to control wild boars and nilgais. We can provide permission to shoot wild boars if someone asks for it; however, there is no provision of providing any compensation to the victim by forest department.”

Boar attacks on humans have been documented since the Stone Age, with one of the oldest depictions being a cave painting in Bhimbetaka in Madhya Pradesh .

A 2012 study compiling recorded attacks from 1825–2012 found accounts of 665 human victims of both wild boars and feral pigs, with the majority (19%) of attacks in the animal’s native range occurring in India. Attacks on humans are rare, but can be serious, resulting in multiple penetrating injuries to the lower part of the body. The animal typically attacks by charging and pointing its tusks towards the intended victim, with most injuries occurring on the thigh region.

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