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White tiger mauls young boy to death at zoo in India

Posted at 10:53 AM, Sep 23, 2014
and last updated 2014-09-23 10:53:06-04

NEW DELHI  — A day out turned to tragedy Tuesday when a white tiger in a New Delhi zoo mauled a visitor to death, an official said.

The attack happened around lunchtime after the visitor “jumped into the tiger’s enclosure,” zoo director Amitabh Agnihotri told CNN.

He didn’t have immediate details about the age of the person involved, but local media reported he was a teenage schoolboy.

The tiger purportedly grabbed the visitor by his neck, dragged him to a corner and mauled him, a cell phone video played out on local television networks showed.

Eyewitnesses who spoke with reporters also gave a similar account of the attack as they accused zoo security of a slow response.

“Instead of focusing on saving that person’s life, the security was focusing on shooing away the crowds who had gathered there,” an unnamed woman visitor said in televised comments from outside the zoo.