It took the Forest Department eight hours to capture the leopard that attacked two persons and a cow after venturing into a locality on the Delhi-Ghaziabad border on Thursday.
The animal came into Krishna Vihar Kuti at 8.30 p.m. and attacked a biker and a boy before entering a house while going after a girl. The girl’s family, however, locked the 70 kg leopard inside and did not let locals harm it.
The leopard was finally tranquillised at 6 a.m., after which it was transported to a forest reserve in Saharanpur.
Team called from Meerut
“The male leopard managed to enter the house of one Satyapal Prajapati around 8.30 p.m. on Thursday. Prajapati’s daughter Preeti, who was the first to spot it, ran into the house with the animal behind her. The leopard then came out and injured 27-year-old Bittu, a minor boy named Akash, and a cow before going back into the house,” said a senior Forest Department official.
Mr. Prajapati told The Hindu that his daughter saved herself by running upstairs. “She ran to the balcony on the first floor and locked the door. Later, the leopard came out of the house and attacked a minor boy and a man on a bike. It then came back to my house and attacked my cow. Since Preeti was safe on the balcony, my son Ankit (23) locked the main door and called the police,” he said, adding that the police and a team from the Ghaziabad Forest Department arrived at 10 p.m.
Even as the team was called in from Meerut with tranquilliser darts, hundreds of locals arrived at Prajapati’s house and stayed till the animal was captured.
B.P. Singh, Forest officer (Ghaziabad), said that the target was to not harm the leopard. “We lured the leopard with a hen and tranquillised it,” said Mr. Singh.
Also, the entrance to Prajapati’s house was covered with a net to prevent the animal from escaping. The Forest Department also tried to use a goat as bait, but the idea was shot down by animal activists.
The leopard lost consciousness after the third tranquilliser around 6 a.m, after which it was pulled out in a net and put inside a cage. “We suspect that the animal may have come from the nearby Hindon river. In any case, leopards are known to travel 50 to 100 km at night. There have been sightings of the animal in Ghaziabad earlier,” Mr. Singh added.
