A leopard was thrashed to death by the villagers of Khattalwada village in Umargam taluka of Valsad district.
A leopard was thrashed to death by the villagers of Khattalwada village in Umargam taluka of Valsad district on Sunday morning.
The leopard, after attacking a woman and a police constable took shelter in a house, but villagers trapped it in fishing net and killed it. Officials of the forest department were unable to save the animal as they did not have a tranquiliser gun.
According to reports, the leopard slipped into the village in the early hours of Sunday morning. It attacked a villager, Asha Macchi, who was going for answering nature’s call, from behind. Macchi sustained injuries on her face, neck and forehead, but was able to flee from the spot. She informed other villagers about the leopard, prompting Bhaskarao Patil, a police constable, to rush to the spot.
Patil tried to deal with the leopard, but it attacked him also, leading to serious head injuries. Both Macchi and Patil have been admitted to a private hospital, where their condition is said to be serious.
After injuring the cop, the beast fled from the spot towards human settlements. Frightened with the gathered crowd, it hid into the house of a villager, Pravin Kogra.
Villagers closed the doors of the house, informed the forest department and placed fishing nets at all exit points. After two failed attempts, villagers were successful in trapping the leopard in a net. They, then, began to thrash it with wooden sticks and iron rods. Due to heavy beating, the leopard became unconscious and was later handed over to forest department officials.
Officials took the animal to the forest rest house at Sanjan and untied the animal, only to find it dead. The incident exposed the slackness of forest department staff. When villagers were beating the animal, forest officials did not try to stop them.
“We don’t have tranquiliser guns which could have made the leopard unconscious. We tried to save the animal, but villagers were so terrified that they continued to attack the beast, leading to its death,” Arjun Chaudhry, range forest officer of Umargam, was quoted as saying.
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