Wild leopard mauls 13 people on day-long rampage

Mangalore Today News Network

Assam, 4 June 2012: A wild leopard was shot dead after injuring 13 people during a day-long rampage in a company compound near an Indian village.

 

 

 

 

The fully grown male leopard managed to get inside the Oil India Limited field headquarters campus at Duliajan in the Dibrugarh district where he attached several staff members.

The shocking photos show the animal attacking an Oil security guard after he tried to rescue his colleague.
Attacked: A man wrestles with a leopard as a forest official tries to catch it with a net in Duliajan near Dibrugarh in Assam state

Attacked: A man wrestles with a leopard as a forest official tries to catch it with a net in Duliajan near Dibrugarh in Assam state

Forest guards were called to the scene and eventually managed to shoot the animal with a tranquillizer but were forced to shoot it dead when the drug didn’t take effect.
 
P Shiv Kumar, divisional forest officer of Digboi forest division, said: ’We were informed about a leopard straying into a bungalow of an Oil executive on Sunday morning.

’I accompanied a team of veterinary doctors from the Centre for Rehabilitation and Conservation of the Wildlife Trust of India to the spot.

’By the time we got there, the leopard had attacked five people. We tried to tranquillize the leopard, but it got agitated - which is normal before sedatives takes effect - and pounced on the large crowd gathered at the spot.

’The security personnel were left with no option but to shoot it.’

A forest official said leopards were often spotted on the Oil campus because of its proximity to the Joypore reserve forest.

Another leopard was caged by the forest department in neighbouring Sivasagar district early this morning.

In the Sivasagar incident, the forest department managed to capture a female leopard from Serekapar early this morning.

Sivasagar divisional forest officer Ranjan Das said: ’At least four leopards have been sighted in the area in the past few days. The leopard family had killed several cattle in the area, as such we have placed a cage using a goat as a bait.’

He said the female leopard was later released at Abhayapur reserve forest and officers were trying to track down the remaining leopards.

 

 

Courtesy: Suzannah Hills, Dailymail