14 DAY TRIAL // The news just broke that, at one point last week, a group of people from the Shopian district of Kashmir saw fit to set a bear on fire while the animal was still very much alive.
Needless to say, animal rights activists were simply appalled when hearing the news, and it seems that the Indian government is not going to take things lightly either.
Thus, Huffington Post reports that a thorough investigation is to be conducted in order to pin down the exact culprits and make sure they pay for their deeds.
Interestingly enough, this incident occurred only two days prior to the International Conference on Bear and Research Management in New Delhi, which means that added strain was placed on solving the issue of wild bears losing their natural habitats and being forced to come into contact with human ever more often.
Apparently, the bear targeted by this angry mob lives in an area where forests and human communities are fairly close to one another, which is why conflicts and cases of bears attacking humans are rather frequent.
As Vivek Menon, the executive director of the Wildlife Trust of India, puts it, “I think there's a general resentment and I think people are trying to take law into their own hands.”
Furthermore, “People are living closer and closer to the forests and therefore coming into contact with bears - and both people and bears are suffering. That [recent bear attacks] is spreading fear and panic among people and resulting in absurd retaliatory measures.”
The video below shows how the mob chases the bear and leaves it with no choice but to climb a tree in order to escape their anger. Although the bear manages to take refuge at the top of a tree, the mob uses a stick to poke it with a burning cloth.
Seeing how the fumes and the flames make it impossible for the bear to keep its balance, the animal falls to the ground and heads for the woods.
However, nobody can say for sure whether the bear eventually survived this attack or not.
Fair warning, the images are rather shocking and viewer discretion is recommended.
