“As he too didn’t return, the family members and relatives went in search at night, but couldn’t find him anywhere. They resumed the search on Thursday morning and were shocked to find his partially missing body in the forest area,” said a forest department staff.

It is suspected that the carnivore had consumed his body, which was retrieved and sent for a postmortem at Ooty Government Hospital.

This is the second incident in a fortnight as a woman who went missing recently while plucking tea leaves in an estate near Ooty was also killed in an attack by a carnivore.