NEW DELHI: A white tiger on Tuesday attacked and killed a youth who apparently jumped into its enclosure at a zoo in the Indian capital.

Witnesses said the tiger grabbed the young man by the neck as horrified onlookers at the National Zoological Park in New Delhi screamed and threw sticks and stones to try to save him.

One witness said he raced to the enclosure after hearing screams to see the victim locked in the tiger’s jaws, “writhing badly in pain”.

“He kept suffering for the next 10-15 minutes, but nobody helped him, “Himanshu, who only gave one name, told the CNN-IBN news channel. The head of the zoo said that a guard posted at the enclosure raised the alarm, but the victim was dead before anything could be done.

“We do have tranquilising guns but they are at the zoo hospital. By the time we could have organised those, he was killed,” said zoo director Amitabh Agnihotri.

The man climbed over the railing and into a deep concrete ditch at about 1pm, a statement from the zoo said, from where the tiger apparently dragged the man into its grassy enclosure.

Witnesses had said the railings around the tiger enclosure were low and speculated that the victim may have fallen in.

But Agnihotri defended the zoo. “There are guards there. If we increase the height of the fencing, how will people be able to look at the animal?” he said.

The zoo said the victim was a Delhi resident and about 20 years old, contradicting earlier reports that he was a teenager. One official said he also appeared to have been “under the influence of alcohol”.

“Security had tried to keep him away from the enclosure, but he somehow managed to jump in and the white tiger who was present at the enclosure leapt on to him,” junior official Rohit Kumar said.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2014