NEW DELHI, July 26 (Xinhua) -- An adult tigress was beaten to death by angry residents in northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, police said Friday.

The tigress was killed at Mataina village outside Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, about 240 km north of Lucknow, the capital city of Uttar Pradesh.

"An adult tigress was beaten to death by villagers using clubs here," a police official posted in Pilibhit said. "The incident we are told took place on Wednesday and a case has been registered against 31 people."

A two-minute video available on social media about the incident shows the wild animal being beaten to death with clubs by a group of villagers and a voice in background can be heard saying the tigress was attacked because she had mauled a villager in the morning.

Wildlife department officials said the tigress succumbed because of broken ribs and injuries to her body.

According to officials, the wild animal was cremated after a post-mortem.

Reports suggest that a forest department team reached the spot while the villagers were beating the tigress. However, the angry villagers stopped them from taking injured wild animal to hospital.

The local government officials have ordered a magisterial probe to investigate the incident.

Officials say wild animals stray into the villages usually in search of food. However, the human presence makes them insecure, following which they resort to attacking people. At times, these creatures are attacked by scared villagers in retaliation which also proves fatal for them.

There are strict laws in force in India against the killing of wild animals.

Wildlife experts say mass urbanization, denudation of forests, encroachment of forestland, vanishing of buffer zones in the forests and extraction of medicinal plants are some of the reasons responsible for increasing conflict between humans and animals.