Railway lines cutting through tiger reserves and other protected areas like Buxa in north West Bengal, Palamau in Jharkhand, Valmiki Nagar in Bihar, Chandika in Orissa, and through elephant reserves in Nilgiri and Anamalais have taken a heavy toll on wildlife.

In April last year, a tigress met a gruesome death by a train in Dudhwa in Uttar Pradesh, and in 2003 Rajdhani Express killed a tiger in the Darah sanctuary near Kota in Rajashtan.

The Dudhwa line, which cuts through three kms of the park has been particularly fatal -in 2003 three elephants were run over by a speeding train and in the past decade over 30 animals have been killed on this line.

The heaviest price is paid by the elephant, as tracks cut across elephant reserves and ancient migratory paths of the animal. Between 2002-2004, 26 elephants were killed on the track, in 2006, eleven elephants met their brutal end by train.

The fatalities are highest in North Bengal, in fact, on a track that runs parallel to the one under which the tiger reportedly met its death this Monday. It passes through four protected areas in north West Bengal-Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary, Buxa Tiger Reserve, Gorumara National Park and Chapramari Wildlife Sanctuary - and has earned itself the sobriquet of 'Killer tracks' since many a wild animal has been slaughtered on this line.

In a short space of twelve hours, three elephants were killed, and one critically injured on May 28-29 last year. A tusker was killed when hit by the Alipurduar-bound Mahananda Express in Buxa Tiger Reserve on the night of May 28th, 2006. Next morning saw another shock, on the same tracks a passenger train had killed a female and her calf in Jaipalguri, the calf died on the spot while the mother succumbed later to her injuries. Another female elephant met the same tragic fate at the same spot by an intercity express later in the evening.

The same train had critically injured a gaur at Hilla Jhora on May 28. April 11, 2007,a tusker met a gruesome death by a speeding train bound for Gawahati in Gorapara, near Buxa Tiger Reserve.

This broad-gauge track connects Siliguri to Alipurduar and further to Guwahati, the total toll last year on this track was six elephants, two leopards and one gaur. The uproar caused by these deaths had moved the West Bengal Chief Minister to write to the Prime Minister's office to initiate a dialogue between the Railways and the Forest Department to minimise the fatal impact of wildlife by speeding trains.

And though the high court in verdict said that the Railways should slow down trains, and take other precautions through the stretch that cuts into the forest, it is clear that the Railways are yet to comply with the same.

"The fatalities have only risen since 2003 when this meter gauge was converted to broad gauge. The number of trains plying on this has increased, particularly during the nights a fatal time since visibility is poor," says Colonel Shakti Bannerjee formerly of the WWF India (West Bengal). The massive toll on our rapidly dwindling wildlife clearly indicates that careful thought must go into 'development activities' in the few remaining wildlife habitats.

Moreover, where railtracks already exist in forest areas, precautions can go a long way in preventing wildlife deaths, as in the instance of Rajaji Nation Park. Between 1987 and 2001, 18 elephants were killed by train in Rajaji alone on the line that connects Delhi and Dehradun. Joint efforts by the Forest department, Railways and Wildlife Trust of India, a Delhi-based NGO have yielded results and for the past five years there have been no fatalities, except for one incident when an elephant was injured by a train last year, but lived to tell the tale.

Trains slow down inside Rajaji, train drivers have been sensitised, and constant patrolling by the forest department to alert train drivers of elephants on track have minimised the fatal impact. A similar exercise on the tracks that cut through Gir National Park has stopped the killing in the past ten years-before that ten Asiatic lions were killed between the period 1985-1995.

Was it poaching?

The mystery over the death of the tiger who met its tragic end near Dolong near Falakata near north West Bengal continues. While the Forest department maintains that it was killed by a train, the railway officials have denied this, retaliating that the tiger was beaten to death.

While there is no dearth of wildlife fatalities by train, it looks as though in this incident, the case might be different. The tiger's dead body shows few injury marks, while in the case of a train accident the body would be terribly mutilated.

It is suspected that the tiger could have been a victim of poaching, that is being covered up by the forest department to avoid embarrassment.

A senior forest official based in Jaipalguri denies this, adding that the postmortem clearly indicates death due to fatal injuries on the head, broken ribs and resulting cardiac failure. But conservationists retort that the postmortem was a hurried one and done in the absence of any outside party, and therefore could not be relied upon