Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Road construction and blasts for making tunnels continues till late evenings in Simrol in Choral area, leading to habitat destruction and dislocation of wild animals especially leopards. Leopards are prominently found in Choral and Mhow range in Indore district as these forests are their habitat, as per records.
While the forest department had given limited permission for working after sunset so as to minimise disturbance to nocturnal animals, the construction work still goes on beyond sunset. This has led to leopards crawling into other areas to save themselves from blasts and construction. In one such incident, three leopards, i.e. a leopardess and two cubs found refuge in the campus of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Indore.
They escaped from the forest to save themselves about a week ago. However, the fear-struck IITians have called for help from the Forest Department to rescue the leopard family. The three leopards were sighted on the campus of IIT Indore about a week ago. Immediately, the institute urged the Forest Department to set up cages to capture it. It has been a week since the first sighting, but the Forest Department has not been able to rescue the leopards and cubs from the campus.
IIT Indore representative Sumit Kumar said, “We spotted a leopard with two cubs in the campus about seven days ago.” After which, the authorities called upon the forest team. “They set up various traps to rescue the family, but to no avail,” Kumar said. He added that the threat of a human-animal conflict looms over the campus until the family is rescued. “The last we saw of the family of leopards was about three days ago,” Kumar said. Locals say leopard sightings are quite normal in this area. Part of IIT, too, was once a forest land.
