“It looked healthy and well fed. But it was not within the range to either tranquilise or shoot. Perhaps the bullet had only brushed through, and the wound has healed by now,” said OP Singh, Faizabad District Forest Officer.

Efforts to track the tiger continued on Monday, but yielded no results. Failing to catch it, the department has now obtained two trained German Shepherds to help them track it down. The dogs have been provided by a Delhi-based NGO, Traffic India, which works for checking wildlife crime. Deputy Range Officer Sanjay Shrivastava, leader of the combing team, said: “With the help of these trained dogs, we hope that our task will become a bit easier.”

While the Forest Department is on the lookout for the tiger with orders to shoot it, a team from the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) has joined the combing operations in an effort to save the big cat. “We are trying to track down the tiger so that it can be rehabilitated,” said Ashok Kumar, Vice- Chairman of WTI. The rescue team has been asked to step up the vigil near Betwa where the tiger is expected to go to drink water, he added.