Leopard 'suspected' to have turned man-eater shot dead in Udaipur

Jaipur: A leopard "suspected" to have turned man-eater was shot dead on Friday by a joint team of forest department and police in Rajasthan's Udaipur district, an official said.

In Udaipur district, humans were hunted by leopards on September 18, 19, 20, 25, 28 and 30. In the above incidents, the place of attack by leopard were Gram Panchayat Chhali, Bagdunda, Majavad and Madar under the jurisdiction of Deputy Forest Conservator Udaipur (North).

In a fresh attack on Wednesday, the leopard attacked two women who were working in in the field in Madar village of Badgaon. One of the women, who was seriously injured in the attack, died during treatment.

The leopard which was shot dead in Madar area near the city is said to be involved in these attacks.

Further confirmation will done after the sample test report will come out, Chittora added.

Chief Wildlife Warden PK Upadhyay told PTI that there could be more than one leopard, so it cannot be claimed that this is same leopard that was involved in all the attacks.

He said that there is no relaxation in vigil at the moment and a team from Gujarat was called on Thursday to be in the Madar area for seven days Samples were collected from the attack that took place on Wednesday and from the leopard that was killed today for DNA sampling test. The final test results will confirm if it was the same animal or not, he said.

Upadhyay said that with the killing of this leopard, the permission that we had issued earlier for shooting has expired and now no one can shoot a leopard.

He noted that the postmortem will be done according to the standard operating procedure (SOP) which is the same for a tiger and a leopard.

The DNA report will take some time to arrive and till then the team will remain deployed in the affected area, he added.

Earlier today, Divisional Forest Officer Ajay Chittora had said that the leopard was an adult male which apparently turned man-eater.

Further confirmation will be done after the sample test report will come out, Chittora had said.

The woman that was killed on Wednesday was the eighth person to die in leopard attack since September 18.

Eight victims include four women and a five-year-old child who died due to leopard attacks in various areas of Udaipur.

Concerned over the leopard attack and growing resentment among the locals, the forest authorities placed cages, installed camera traps and sought help from the Indian Army to track the leopard last month. As a result, three leopards were captured from different places.

However, after a 55-year-old woman was mauled to death on October 1 outside her house in Suawaton ka Gudha when she was feeding fodder to livestock, authorities issued an order to shoot down the animal.

The permission was granted under conditions that an attempt should be made to tranquillise or trap the leopard. However, in case the animal cannot be tranquillised or trapped, its correct identification should be ensured before killing the animal.