According to forest officials, the nawabs — Hyderabad’s Shafaat Ali Khan Bahadur and Bijnore’s Saad Asif Khan Bahadur — are expert hunters and have killed several maneaters.

Both have arrived with their royal armoury, including heavy bore rifles and burst shotguns, said District Forest Officer O P Singh.

Shafaat Ali Khan said they had voluntarily come forward to help the Forest department. “Hunting a maneater involves following its pug marks, smell, keeping a watch on its kill, water sources, reading its roar and groan. No training centre teaches this, you have to learn it over the years. Since I have this expertise, I have come here to help,” he added.

Asked if the Forest department will pay the nawabs for their help, O P Singh replied: “What can we pay them? They are nawabs. We are taking their help because they are experts.”

Two operations are simultaneously on, one to kill the maneater and the other to catch it alive. While the second operation is being run by a team of two men, a number of sharpshooters have been scouring the jungles of Faizabad to kill the tiger.

The official killing squad is led by A N Singh, an expert from the Department, who has killed 18 tigers so far, each with a single shot of his heavy bore magnum .375 bore rifle.

Its other members include Chief Conservator of Forest Mahendra Singh, Deputy Director of the Dudhwa National Park P P Singh, Director of Lucknow Zoo D Utkarsh Shukla and Deputy Ranger Sanjay Shrivatava.

Around 100 wildlife experts, who have come to Faizabad from different wildlife centres and institutes, have been deployed in the villages bordering the jungle to educate the locals about the precautions they should take.

The tiger had strayed out of Pilibhit forests in November. It travelled over 400 km to the outskirts of Lucknow and then went to Faizabad via Barabanki.

At present, the tiger is in the 1,000-hectare Rampur Janak