Pauri: The terror of a man-eating leopard in Bamthi village of Pauri development block has finally ended after the animal was shot dead by the forest department’s shooter team. The leopard was killed near the incident site on Thursday night as a last resort after repeated attempts to capture it failed.
Officials said the leopard’s postmortem was conducted on Friday, following which the carcass was disposed of as per NTA guidelines. Earlier, on May 4, a female leopard had also been trapped in a cage near the same area, bringing some relief to villagers.
The incident came to light after a 70-year-old woman, Sita Devi, was attacked by a leopard while cutting grass in a field near her house on April 23. According to villagers, she tried to save herself by attacking the animal with a sickle and raising an alarm, but the leopard dragged her into nearby bushes where she died on the spot.
Villagers had claimed that two leopards were involved in the attack. Following the incident, the forest department deployed a large monitoring team including renowned hunter Jai Hukil, departmental shooters and around 20 personnel. The department had also installed four cages, solar CCTV cameras, camera traps and drones for surveillance.
SDO Garhwal Ayesha Bisht said the male leopard had been repeatedly spotted near the attack site over the last four days. Officials first attempted to trap and tranquilise the animal, but failed to capture it.
She said the leopard was ultimately shot dead around 9 pm on Thursday as the final option. According to officials, the leopard was around eight years old and had an injury in one of its legs.
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The forest department has stated that monitoring teams will continue to remain in the area for a few more days as a precautionary measure.
