The nights are spent on machans or in sleepless vigils, the days in a nervous huddle. For the past three weeks, six villages in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district, where a pack of wolves are feared to be on the prowl, have been on the edge.

Six people — four of them children — have been killed and over 20 injured in alleged wolf attacks across the villages that are in a 20-km-radius of Kaiserganj tehsil of Bahraich. The fear is familiar. Exactly a year ago, after a spate of similar attacks and killings in the neighbouring Mahasi tehsil, the state government had launched Operation Bhediya and claimed to have captured six wolves.

But now, the wolves are back. A search operation led by chief forest conservator in Bahraich. (Express Photo by Vishal Srivastav)

Bahraich Divisional Forest Offi

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