Indore (Madhya Pradesh): A young leopard fled from the Kamla Nehru Prani Sanghralaya (Indore city zoo) on Thursday. This has created panic in the zoo and the entire city. The leopard is less than a year old, estimated to be 7 month old.
The leopard is a wild one and not a trained leopard of the city zoo. Hence, this young leopard may attack children, animals and even adults in self-defence. The leopard is known to stray into human habitations.
The leopard was brought from Nepanagar, at Burhanpur. It was rescued by the Nepanagar forest department and was brought to Indore city zoo for a check-up and treatment. It was brought in late on Wednesday night.
Since it was a young leopard and brought in late, it was decided to keep the leopard in the transport cage overnight. A delegation of forest department stayed with the leopard overnight. Due to the cold, the leopard was covered with a quilt. However, when the team woke up in the morning, the leopard was nowhere to be seen. The cage had a hole in it. Since it was a young leopard and small in size, it is expected that the opening was door enough to escape for the leopard.
Leopard search operation
A search operation was launched to rescue the leopard. An Indore city zoo, Indore forest department and Nepanagar forest department team attempted to track the leopard in and around the city zoo. It could possibly have strayed near the river or the outskirts of the city. Sniffer dogs were also called in to help trace the leopard. But all efforts failed as the leopard could not be found.
Rescue from Nepanagar
§ A leopard had suddenly entered the verandah of a house in Navra village of Nepanagar tehsil of the district around 9 pm; no one was there at that time
§ As soon as the villagers came to know about this, the whole village gathered around and an atmosphere of fear was created among the villagers
§ The villagers informed the forest department and, after a difficult rescue operation lasting four hours till around 1 pm, the forest department managed to catch the animal and put it in the cage; no one was injured
§ The leopard had been seen in and around the fields for the past few days, the villagers told the forest department rescue team
