First was a suicide attempt, second: to shake hands.
By Dileep Thekkethil
A 35-year old man from Rajasthan, in an inebriated condition, jumped into a lion’s enclosure in Nehru Zoological Park in Hyderabad, on Sunday.
Mukesh, a laborer with L&T Metro Rail in Hyderabad, jumped the fence of the lion enclosure despite being warned by the security staff.
The lioness named Radhika was inside the enclosure and Mukesh wished to shake hands with her. As the lioness approached, Mukesh was heard by the bystanders saying, “Please come to me my darling. Please.”
The big cat had moved close to Mukesh but fortunately, R Papaiah, the keeper of the enclosure, diverted the lioness from him and rescued him unhurt.
“After preliminary enquiry it was found that Mukesh was in an inebriated state and had jumped inside the enclosure to go near the lion. He has been handed over to Bahadurpura Police,” Shivani Dogra, curator of Nehru Zoological Park, said.
Police said that Mukesh will be booked on the charges of trespass and under IPC.
The incident came just a day after the video of a man getting mauled by lions in Chile went viral.
On Saturday, a 29- year old man took of his clothes and jumped into a lion’s enclosure in Chile’s Santiago zoo. Zoo keepers killed two lions to save the man and a suicide note was found from his clothes.
“Due to the circumstances and to firstly protect the life of this person, we found ourselves obliged to apply all of our security protocols,” the zoo’s statement reads.
According to local Chilean media, the two lions, a male and a female, were shot in front of a huge number of visitors. The male lion is said to have been born in the zoo whereas the female was rescued from a circus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkFN7lPnu6E