Three tiger cubs were mown down by a train while crossing a railway track with their mother in a forest in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region.

The cubs’ bodies were found in the Junona forest range in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra on Thursday morning. They had been hit by the Balharshah-Gondia passenger train.

“There were three cubs. Two were found on the track itself while a third was found half a kilometre away from it,” S V Rama Rao, Chief Conservator of Forests, Chandrapur, told Down To Earth.

Some reports in the media had speculated that the cubs might have been killed and their bodies then thrown on the track. “That is not possible. The accumulation of blood on the tracks and the pug marks indicate otherwise. We also found the pugmarks of the mother and the cubs in the forest, which surrounds the track on both sides. The post mortem has been conducted and shows no signs of any foul play,” said Rao.

“We were able to reconstruct the sequence of events by looking at the pugmarks and blood stains. They clearly point to the mother and cubs crossing the track. But while the mother was able to cross safely, the cubs were not so lucky,” Rishikesh Ranjan, who works for the Forest Development Corporation of Maharashtra (FDCM), told Down To Earth. The FDCM is part of the state forest department and has been leased some parts of forest for productive forestry.

Rao also said that the mother was very likely in the vicinity. “Since there have been so many humans in the area throughout the day, the animal must have stayed away from the track. But she is very likely in the forest surrounding the track. We will find out her whereabouts tomorrow,” he said

Several prominent wildlife activists expressed anger at the incident on social media.