The tiger-chasing superman of the Sundarbans

“It’s utter chaos when the Royal Bengal Tiger enters a village,” says Lutfor Mollah.

As soon as the news of a tiger’s arrival in a village spreads, Lutfor with his gang of men enters the scene to chase it out. For the past four-five years, Lutfor has been in charge of one of the two ‘quick response teams’ the state forest department has set up which cover the villages of Sundarbans’ Kultali block.

On learning about this leader of a tiger-chasing team, we set off for his village, Purba Gurguria, under the Maipit Coastal Police Station.

The rugged road without asphalt coating leads to a bumpy dirt track. Alongside the winding road, flow the deep, dark waters of river Matla. We sighted not a single boat in the Matla during our half-hour walk. On the other side of the river stands a vast, dense forest.

Purba Gurguria is home to almost 5,600 people (Census 2011) – mostly Hindus but also with significant numbers of Muslim residents. Fishing and farming are the two important sources of livelihoods in this village under Bhubaneswari panchayat.

Reaching the Bat Tola locality where Lutfor lives, we asked around for his house. A boy in his late teens clutching a bag full of crabs is waiting in the courtyard of the Kali Mandir adjacent to Bat Tola. Seeing us, he asked: "must be coming from Kolkata? I am Lutfor Mollah's elder son. It’s you I have been waiting for."

Lutfor's home is nearby. Built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana on about 1,000 square feet of land, the single-storeyed house has three modest brick rooms, a concrete roof, and a veranda. Stepping into the largest room, I hear a feeble voice from a reclining human figure on a bed: "What can I say? This fever has taken over me for a few days." This is Lutfor Mollah? This frail man!

Lutfor, 40, and his wife Saleya have two sons. The eldest, Selim, 17, has epilepsy and dropped out of school after Class 9. The younger son, Salauddin, 12, is a student at a madrasa in Raidighi and stays in a hostel. Selaya, 33, runs the household. The couple had no education themselves but ensured it for their children. Lutfor says: “Neither I nor any of my siblings ever got the opportunity to go to school. Newspapers or books – I can read nothing." However, he did want us to know he had learned to write and sign his name all by himself.

"I dream of educating Salauddin and making him go places…" Saleya says.

We hope Lutfor will launch into his tiger stories now, but he returns to his own life story. For this son of fisherfolk who grew up in a household of great scarcity, Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) could never be a source of mystery and excitement, as it is for distant visitors like us. For Lutfor, it’s part of everyday life. And so he continues, narrating all the other stories equally relevant to him.

"My parents were very poor. Both were working, yet the money could barely make ends meet. They used to catch fish and crabs in the rivers and creeks. We – three brothers, three sisters, and our parents – spent years in a straw-and-mud house with such hardships... the backbreaking work took a toll on ma and baba’s health and they both fell ill. I could not cure my parents’ sickness, and they died in agony in front of my eyes.

"My struggle for life began at the age of 14. I used to catch min [tiger prawn seedlings] and bagda [tiger prawn] in the river. When I grew up a bit, I started voyaging in other people's boats to catch fish and would return home every seven days."

Shrugging off his feverish lethargy, Lutfor now gets up from his bed and arrives at the riverbank. There’s a boat moored nearby that he starts mending, squatting on the muddy bank, while still talking. “The fear of tigers is present all year round. During their breeding season in winter, they often come to the villages. Also, when two male tigers are in the same area, territorial rivalry sometimes sees them land up in nearby villages” around the same time.

Lutfor’s lived experience has earned him clarity about the tiger’s movements in and around human settlements. “The shortage of prey in their forest is also a reason,” he says.

He speaks of the struggles of people in the Sundarbans delta – and its tigers – in the face of changing climatic conditions and how that’s made their lives more difficult these past few years. Lutfor sums up the “daily problems of the Sundarbans.” Rising water levels in the sea, islands getting submerged due to erosion of rivers, saltwater flowing into the farmland through rivers and creeks, and the shrinking of the mangrove forests. As a result, “tigers lose their homes [habitat] and come to the villages searching for food,” leading inevitably to human-tiger conflict. Read: Hunting for crabs in the shadow of the Bengal tiger

"Tiger chasing involves many tricks,” says Lutfor and goes on to reveal them. “As soon as the animal enters the village swimming across the river, we go prepared with sticks and ‘chocolate bombs’[locally made firecrackers stuffed with gunpowder] provided by the forest department."

Sure, you don’t need cannon fire to chase tigers away, but their feeble armoury has us worried. Lutfor, though, is beaming with confidence, "We take a net with us and surround the area with it and vigorously hit the nearby tree with sticks, explode the chocolate bombs, and shout in chorus at the top of our voices. Soon a scared mama [tigers are often referred to here as mama or maternal uncle] runs into the forest." Lutfor proudly proclaims the effectiveness of his humble ammunition. "Mind you, so far, no danger has dared touch me while chasing away the tigers."

It dawns on me that Lutfor Mollah and his team actually save the lives of both humans and tigers.

By scaring and chasing the four-legged visitors back to the jungle, they ensure that the villagers do not kill the endangered creatures. And those who execute that risky and courageous task are ordinary villagers from both Muslim and Hindu communities, all of whom depend on the forests and rivers of the Sundarbans for their livelihoods. Lutfor says they cannot afford to be afraid of the fearsome predators. The two quick response teams active in Kultali comprise 12 or 13 people each. Yet, the teams receive no training. Nor is there any arrangement by the forest department to ensure their safety.

“We get 1,000 rupees each for chasing tigers. Such episodes occur at least three or four times a year. Yet, chasing tigers doesn’t fill our bellies,” Lutfor says nonchalantly. Which means the best they can each get is Rs. 4,000-5,000 in a year. Obviously not an amount they can live on. So Lutfor also does other work, including catching fish and crabs in rivers and creeks for nine months of the year.

"During the months of Chaitra, Baishakh and Jyaishtha, [mid-March to mid-May] fish eggs hatch in the river. We don't go to the river at that time. I go to the forest to collect honey. At other times of the year, I depend on fishing and manage somehow." Lutfor’s earnings from all these activities together average Rs. 8,000-10,000 a month.

Over the years, Lutfor has built and owned three boats that he says, help “provide income for nine months a year to at least 20 fisherfolk, including both husbands and wives from some families. They go floating together to catch fish and crabs." They are locals who go out with him as these are not trips one undertakes alone. He explains that during these fishing trips, they are away from home for about 8-9 days at a stretch and their boats are on the river for most of that time. They work up to 18 hours a day, facing all sorts of danger. There is hardly any time to rest. After getting back to the village, they take a break of five or six days and then resume their riverine sojourns. Saleya’s words and fears come back to me: "I get very scared during this time [fishing trips in the rivers] and pray constantly for their safe return from the river and that they remain away from maladies. Allah is the only hope…"

Mithun Mondal, a resident of Kultali and an activist of the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights, explains why these fishing trips in the delta region are becoming difficult to sustain. National Tiger Conservation Authority estimates 88 to 100 tigers are living in the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve which is spread across 2,584 square kilometers. Mitun says, “The forest department is systematically redrawing the buffer zone of the forest and including more of it in the core area. The tiger zone [Critical Tiger Habitat] has increased in the last few years. The core area is reserved for tigers to roam. While honey collection is allowed in this area, the collection of fish and crabs is strictly prohibited. Fishing is only allowed within the buffer zone. The irony is, as the buffer zone decreases, fisherfolk like Lutfor are compelled to enter the core area for survival.”

Tigers, however, need no permission to enter. When a tiger arrives in the village, Lutfor and his team are called in to discipline it. Yet, it is hard to find any statistical acknowledgement in the government records of either the number of lives saved, or the names of people whose bravery saved these lives. “High hopes!” says Mithun Mondal, “Quite often, [officials] term the deaths resulting from tiger attacks as ‘illegal’ due to lack of proof.” The families of those who die in tiger attacks in the core area are also not eligible for any compensation.

Even if Lutfor and his companions save tigers and humans from each other, they continue to live with both hunger and a perpetual risk to life and limb from the predators.

Back at the riverbank in Purba Gurguria, Lutfor is still mending the boat. "Our survival depends on this hard labour. I can't think of a life of leisure with my hands idle." Uncertainty looms large in his voice.

He bids farewell, with a faint smile, "Allah willing, we will meet again."

I start walking hurriedly, desperate not to miss the train to Kolkata. I look back. The silhouette of this superman of the Sundarbans engrossed in mending his boat gradually fades in the dying light.

Postscript: On August 19, 2025, the National Board of Wildlife (NBWL) of the Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) approved the West Bengal government’s proposal to re-draw the boundaries of the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve (STR) and include the tiger-inhabited areas in the 24-Parganas (South) divisions. The revised STR will now stretch across 3,629.57 square kilometres, and it will become the second-largest tiger reserve in the country. Residents of the area, now falling within the new STR boundary, particularly fishing folks, are worried and skeptical. They believe the rules and prohibitions will impact their day to day movement for survival.

The story was originally reported in Bangla.