After a pregnant elephant died consuming a fruit stuffed with firecrackers that burst in its mouth in the Silent Valley forest area in Kerala's Palakkad district, a tiger was found dead by forest officials in Pathanamthitta district of Kerala on Tuesday. Reportedly, a local spotted the weak wild cat walking around sick with several wounds infected with worms. Though he had informed the forest officials, the tiger died by the time they reached the spot on Tuesday.

As per the post-mortem of the animal held on Wednesday, it was revealed that the tiger was affected by pneumonia. The seven-year-old tiger had two-week-old injury marks in its mouth due to quills of the porcupine. It is speculated that the tiger could have died due to starvation caused by the injury.

Forest officials suspect that this could be the same tiger that gave sleepless nights to a nearby gram panchayat for the past one month. The officials are yet to confirm. "We can just reveal that it was a female tiger. Cause of death and other doubts can be clarified only after proper investigation," Harikrishnan, Assistant Conservator of Forests, Ranni, told the media.

To find the real cause of death, samples of the wild cat have been sent to the Central Chemical Analytical Lab in Dehradun for further tests. The cadaver was cremated on the Vadasserikara forest range office premises in the afternoon.