Another leopard attack in Junnar

May 28, 2015 05:38 pm | Updated 05:39 pm IST - Pune

Fear continues to stalk the wooded Junnar Taluk in Pune after a leopard mauled a 60-year-old woman to death.

The victim, Sakhubai Hile from the village of Pimpalgaon Joga, was dragged by the leopard when she went to relieve herself in the open. Her body was discovered by villagers on Wednesday, lying in pools of blood.

This is the third such incident in the district in little over a month. According to the deputy conservator of forests, the village had not witnessed a single leopard attack for the last two decades.

On April 17, a five-year-old boy Praveen Dudhpade was killed by a leopard in Junnar’s Khamundi village and earlier this month, a toddler, Sai Mandlik was mauled to death in Dindore village.

While leopards and humans have always cohabited peacefully in the Taluk, the recent surge in leopard attacks has baffled forest department authorities.

Forest officials have laid down traps across 10 strategic places in the Taluk. Two leopards were trapped last week were later shifted to the Manikdoh Leopard Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre.

Another leopard that had fallen in a well in Manchar in Ambegaon Taluk, 50 km from the city was rescued and shifted to this centre earlier this week.

According to field studies carried out in Junnar, the man-leopard crisis has been wrought about not only by development but by the recent translocations of the leopards that has disrupted the formerly harmonious man-beast coexistence.

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