They killed a mother of two, and local villagers cheered.

Avni, a mother of two, was shot by killers at 11.30 PM yesterday. Who was Avni? She was a beautiful, gorgeous tiger trying to bring up two cubs in Yavatmal forest area of Maharashtra. Her crime? She is alleged to have killed 13 humans who had gone deep inside the forest, completely against rules. She was a hunter and if she believed her cubs were under threat she would have responded the only way she knew how, to protect her babies. The cubs will most probably die a wretched death due to hunger. Avni's fate was sealed when she was labeled T1, probably standing for Target 1, because local villagers demanded her death. The Supreme Court refused to interfere with shoot at sight orders on Avni but had no qualms reducing death sentences of those accused of killing Rajiv Gandhi. Calling it assassination of Rajiv Gandhi masks the fact that 14 other people also died in the explosion that killed him, more than Avni is alleged to have killed. The fact that 467 hectares of the same forest have been awarded to Reliance of Anil Ambani group, to build a cement factory, has nothing to do with Avni's execution. The fact that Ambani is from Gujarat, the home state of the Prime Minister, is also irrelevant. "Urine of another tigress and American perfume was spread in some part of the compartment, following which Avni came by sniffing it," said one official. Clearly, they are experts in luring tigers and killing them. They had been trying to find her using trap cameras, drones, sniffer dogs and even a hang-glider for three months. Poor Avni had no chance. Activists pointed out that Avni could not be labeled a man-eater because she had never encroached on human habitation, but humans had gone into forbidden areas of the forest. They are furious that no attempt was made to tranquilize her. They have to understand that with general elections just 6 months away the vote bank, those who live on social schemes and breed without restriction, had to be pleased. While Avni was executed for killing humans, the sad fact is that human life is cheap in India. From 2005-2014, 3,447 people died of fireworks related incidents, while the dreaded Dengue killed only 1,429 over the same period, 23,013 people were killed on railway tracks in the past 4 years and 452 workers died from 2013-2016 because of lack of common safety procedures, wrote Prof D Gupta. At least, 2,000 people have died every year from lightning strikes since 2005. Since 1 January 2017, one person has died every 5 days while cleaning sewers and septic tanks manually. Why do people resort to such degrading work? Because there are too many people for the economy to support. Local villagers cheered Avni's execution, possibly because it provided some excitement in their miserable lives. What chance did she have?