‘Leopard scare’ has once again gripped the Alipiri area, with the regular sighting of a big cat and its pug marks in the locality.
After the carcasses of a dog and a calf were found near a compound wall, apart from a half-eaten body of a deer last week, the area is in the grip of fear; especially the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan School, Sri Venkateswara Vedic University campus and the TTD’s model temple built to facilitate the SVBC crew shoot the ‘mock’ rituals of Tirumala. All these contiguous compounds are located on the Tirumala foothills, abutting the Saluva Narasimharaya bypass road that connects Alipiri and Cherlopalli.
Venkatramana, a push-cart vendor who sells ice-cream near Bhavan’s campus, said that he was nearly frozen to see a leopard chasing two deer near the model temple at around 8.30 a.m. on January 15. “The big cat, however, retreated after seeing a speeding bus,” Mr. Venkatramana told The Hindu .
It happened during the Sankranti holidays for the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan School where 2,179 students study.
The animal’s movement was also recorded in the CCTV camera installed at the southern gate in the early hours of January 8. “As teachers and parents expressed their fear, we have written to the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Chief Wildlife Warden, seeking measures to trap the leopard,” says Bhavan’s honorary director N. Satyanarayana Raju.
