On Tuesday, an enraged crowd burned alive a seven-year-old male leopard apprehended by the Uttarakhand forest department in a village in Pauri Garhwal district in the presence of department officials.
Locals were reportedly agitated following the death of a lady attacked by a leopard earlier this month, according to officials. It’s unclear whether the leopard killed was the same as the one who attacked the woman and killed her. Under the Wildlife Protection Act and other related legislation, a first information report was filed against the local village pradhan and 149 others.
According to district forest officer Mukesh Sharma, the woman, identified as 47-year-old Sushma Devi, was killed by a leopard on May 15 in Saplodi village in the district, prompting forest officials to set up cages in two different sites to trap the animal.
We received word on Tuesday morning at 5.20 a.m. that a leopard had been trapped in one of the cages. Officials from the forest department hurried to the scene. They spoke with the locals, but the cage was attacked by an enraged mob led by the village pradhan. They doused the animal in gasoline and set him ablaze with dry grass. The forest department tried to stop them, but the mob of Saplodi and three other nearby villages was simply too much for them, Sharma added.
“We submitted the leopard’s body for an autopsy after the occurrence.” We also filed a police report against the villagers who had taken the law into their own hands. The leopard, a seven-year-old male leopard, was slain. We couldn’t tell if the leopard who was murdered was the same one who killed the woman. He added, “We’re also looking into why the villagers attacked the leopard.”
Featured Image: Robert Hofmeyr
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