This morning India woke up to the news of the sad demise of tigress Avni. Accused of being a ‘man-eater’, 5-year-old Avni was a mother of two who was unfairly given the death sentence. Even though there were several other ways to deal with the situation, the authorities went with the most cruel one and she ended up paying with her life.

While the news was heartbreaking enough, what’s worse was the way the media reported this unfortunate incident and painted her in the worst light. In its truest sense, Avni was not a man-eater.

According to NTCA’s guidelines, 

“A man-eating tiger has to leave its own habitat and come into human territory, lurk on humans as if they are its own prey, and feed its flesh, habitually. Only then can it be labelled as a ‘man-eater’.” 

If Avni was a man-eater, she would’ve killed a much higher number of people in her bloodlust.

Despite her not being one, the media was quick to label her a deadly man-eater and reported her murder as though it were a criminal death sentence. Here are just a few bad examples of the terrible way in which several media outlets presented this piece of news.

The real reason why Avni would’ve ventured out of her habitat was that humans have been encroaching in her space. We are the reason why animals like her lose their lives. She was in her space. We were the ones who were invading her home.

News outlets were quick to paint Avni as the monster and none of them covered the full story. Nowhere was she proven to have been a ‘man-eater’. And there were several other humane ways to have dealt with the supposed ‘problem’ if there was any.

We should all be ashamed by how the media jumped the gun on this one.