Times of india : Yagnesh Mehta
Surat: For the first time an order to shoot a leopard has been issued in South Gujarat’s forest region after the man eater killed an 11-yearold girl in the wee hours of Friday at Vareli Patna village in Mandvi taluka of Surat district. “In the past such orders had been issued in Godhra and Chhota Udepur. However, it is first time that an order to shoot a leopard has been given in South Gujarat,” said Deva Babu Ande, conservator of forest, Surat. In Godhra, the order to shoot a leopard was issued in 2003 after it killed nine people. Similar incidents forced the authorities to issue an order to shoot the wild cat in Chhota Udepur in 2005. The order to shoot the leopard in South Gujarat comes in the wake of the wild cat killing four persons, including the minor girl, in Mandvi taluka of Surat district in a span of three weeks.
“The leopard has turned a man eater. We are taking help of a tracker, tranquilising experts and two teams which has two shooters to hunt down the leopard,” said Anil Vasava, deputy conservator of forest, Mandvi. The state government has announced a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to the family of the deceased.
Kajal Rathod was sleeping with her mother, Lakhiben, in their house. Her father Ishwar was sleeping outside when at about 5 am a
leopard entered their house and attacked Kajal.
The leopard caught the victim from neck and dragged her outside the house. The victim’s screams woke up her mother who tried to save her daughter from the clutches of the fully grown wild cat but failed.
The victim was dragged to a sugarcane farm near the village around half a kilometre by the leopard. A group of villagers gathered on hearing Kajal’s parents shouts for help. The people followed the animal into the field which escaped on seeing the crowd. However, the leopard had eaten a large part of the victim’s body leaving only legs, one arm and the head.
Those who were recently killed by the leopard are Ravidas Arjun Valvi, 10, of Kamlapor village. He was attacked on November 5. Jasuben Daniya Chaudhary, 70, of Areth village, became the wild cat’s victim on November 13 while Priti Kiran Chaudhary, 21, was killed by it at Nandpor village on November 18. There were two other incidents of attack by the leopard in the area but the victims were fortunate to survive. Attacks on the cattle are a routine affair by the leopards in the rural areas of Surat district.
Meanwhile, a leopard was caught near Bhatkhai village of Mandvi on Saturday. However, forest officials believe it might not be the same man eater which had killed four people in the taluka.
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