Full-grown big cat on a roadside wall late in the evening spreads panic among Borivli East residents
The sight of a full-grown leopard sitting snug on the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) boundary wall alongside the road between Kajupada masjid and Rushivan bus stop at 10 o'clock on Sunday night attracted a huge crowd of onlookers and spread panic in this residential area. Not that the locals are new to such sightings here. They have spotted the big cat before, but what was new and scary in this case was its 10 o'clock show-up when the stretch is normally full of evening walkers and other road users.
According to residents, the leopard is frequently seen sitting on the forest department boundary wall opposite the La Vista building Om Siddharaj society bungalows. Prior to this incident, the leopard used to visit the place after midnight. Though there has never been any leopard attack involving humans in the area, residents now fear the worst since the animal has started visiting the wall so early in the night.
"We are all aware of the presence of the leopard in this area. We also know that on several occasions it has been spotted even moving on the road past midnight. However, for the last two days, the big cat has been spotted at 10 pm. Early arrival of the beast has left everyone scared as, at that point of time, most of the people either walk or drive on this road," said Kajupada resident Sandip Mhapralkar, who saw the leopard on Sunday night.
A resident of La Vista, 23-year-old jewellery designer Kinnari Parimal Shah was initially scared to see the leopard sitting on the wall, barely 100 metres away from her flat, as she was coming home from work. "Soon my scare gave way to curiosity and I started clicking pictures of the beautiful beast," said Shah, adding that government authorities should do something at the earliest to stop it from straying into the nearby housing societies.
Mhapralkar, who is also a volunteer of PAWS-Mumbai, said that soon after the crowd gathered to catch a glimpse of the leopard on the wall, the animal went down into the forest. "We hope the forest department quickly acts to prevent any untoward incident from happening," he said, sounding worried.
Siddhesh Thavre, another local who has seen leopards on that particular wall on several occasions, explained that the big cats came close to the road to prey on stray dogs. "Opposite Kajupada masjid as well as La Vista building, there are a few garbage bins that attract stray dogs and provide an hunting opportunity to leopards," he informed.
Deepak Shetty, a resident of Bharadwaj society adjacent to La Vista, said he had seen the leopard perched atop the boundary wall a week ago. "Several people use this road but we have never heard of leopard charging at anyone. However, now we would like to seek help from the forest department to understand precautions that can be taken to avoid any kind of conflict," he said.
Sunish Subramanian of PAWS-Mumbai said citizens should take some preventive steps and that they should never provoke the animal nor allow children to walk alone on that stretch.
Vikas Gupta, chief conservator of forest and field director for SGNP, said that he has already asked his staff to patrol the area. "We will send our staff to the location along with a team of citizens to create awareness so that the locals know what steps need to be taken to avoid any kind of conflict with leopards."
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