Home accidents animal attacks Indian young man killed by a tiger at the zoo

Indian young man killed by a tiger at the zoo


In September 2014 Maqsood Khan fell into the tiger enclosure in the Delhi zoo, India. Within minutes the tiger attacked him and killed him.

The accident

Maqsood was a 22 year-old Indian, who had recently lost his job. After a visit to the zoo he started developing an obsession for tigers, and he tried to go and visit them whenever he could.

After losing his job he had a lot more free time and used every penny he had left to go and see his beloved tigers.

But one day something went wrong. Maqsood was at the zoo to observe the tigers as always, but this was not enough for him anymore. He maybe wanted to observe them more closely and climbed over the first fence, just under two meters high, and then climbed the higher fence.

Unfortunately, he slipped and fell in the tigers enclosure.

Immediately a male tiger approaches him. Maqsood was shaken both by the recent fall and the fact of finding himself in front of this majestic and lethal animal.

The young man stayed on the ground, frightened and the tiger kept staring at him. The animal was born and raised in the zoo and did not immediately attack Maqsood.

It touched him just with one paw, and seemed that he just wanted to play, but then the zoo visitors started throwing stones at the animal.

They think in doing so they will scare the tiger off, away from Maqsood but they got the opposite result:

The tiger got nervous and attacked the young man, biting him in the neck neck and bringing him into the corner of his habitat.

The doctors, after recovering the body, noticed that the tiger killed Maqsood with a single bite to the neck.

The zoo responsibility

After the accident much criticism was raised against the zoo managers. However, the fences met the standard requirements it was Maqsood who had decided to deliberately climb over them.

It is not known if the visitors present alerted management immediately or if they just stayed there and film the incident. From the moment Maqsood fell to the one of his death is, however, only 10 minutes had passed.

Why did Maqsood go into the tigers’ enclosure?

Relatives say that for some time Maqsood had been obsessed by tigers. After losing his job and therefore having more free time, he spent entire days at the zoo, admiring these animals.

On one hand he even got a tiger tattoo.

The father says Maqsood suffered from mental problems since he was 11 years old, however, no medical reports  were  found to support this assertion.

Maqsood left a seven-month pregnant wife and parents.  Fatima, his wife found it very hard, not only to have lost her husband while being seven months pregnant but also to lose him in such a rough way.

It was difficult especially because of videos that were broadcasted on local television, which showed pictures of the terrible attack that led to the death of her beloved husband.


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