)
A video in which a lion straying on the main road was captured on the Ghodbunder road near Thane on Sunday night. Forest officials sprung into action as they launched a search operation along the route.
What appeared to be a fully grown lion in the video is speculated to have fled from the Borivali Sanjay Gandhi National Park safari. The authenticity of the location is being investigated by the forest department after this video was transferred to them. The locals claimed that a policeman recorded the video while sitting in his car as he managed to shoo away the lion by flashing the headlights of the car.
The video shows the lion walking along a road in Ghodbunder and later crossing the street.
When contacted, Sanjay Gandhi National Park, an on duty official said, "No tiger or lion has fled the reserve and their big cats are all in the Safari Zone." Vikas Gupta, Director of SGNP remained unavailable to comment about the video.
Nitin Khulpe, Round Forest Officer, Nagla range, said," We were informed about the sighting and we soon went to the spot for checking the lion in our territory but it is possible that he might have escaped and we will continue the search operation."
