Nilgiris: The leopard that mauled a three-year-old child at Pandalur in Tamil Nadu was captured on Sunday. The Forest Department successfully tranquilised the animal before it was captured.
Manorama News reported that the animal was captured near the Ambrose Curve here. It will be transferred to the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, sources said.
Nancy (3), daughter of Jharkhand native Shivshanker was killed in the leopard attack on Saturday. The child and her mother were walking back home from Anganwadi through the tea plantation when the animal attacked them. Though the mother saved the daughter from the animal, the girl who suffered deep injuries on the neck, died on the way to the hospital.
On the reports of capturing the problem animal, Gudalur MLA Pon Jayasheelan of All India Anna Dravida Munnetta Kazhakam (AIADMK) told Onmanorama that the forest department officials in charge of the operation are either allowing him to the spot or passing in the correct information to him. “I am representing the people of the constituency and I am answerable to the people”, he said.
Mr Jayasheelan also said that he was moving to the scene and if not permitted to have a look at the animal and confirm with the authorities that the animal was the same which caused all these inexplicable woes to the public, he would start a sit-in on the spot. “I am also a member of the committee that was constituted to monitor the ‘capturing’ of the animal and even myself is kept in the dark about what is happening on the ground”, he lamented. Pon Jayasheelan also said that he would fight tooth and nail any attempts to release the animal again in the jungle elsewhere.
As rumours are doing rounds that the forest department is on with measures to shift the animal to Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary, mobs have started blocking roads to Gudalur to check any attempt by the forest department to smuggle out the animal. A large posse of Tamil Nadu special police also have stationed at the spot to check any untoward incidents.
This was the third leopard attack in the past two weeks, people said. A leopard attacked three women on December 21 at Elamanna near Kolappalli and one of them succumbed to the injuries later. On Thursday, an animal mauled Karthika, a four-year-old child playing in the front yard of her home. The child was admitted to the Taluk Hospital, Pandalur, with deep wounds. The animal left the child when people suddenly rushed to save the child.
Countless cases of cattle-lifting were also reported from the region in the recent past, people said.
Agitated by the the animal raid, local residents intensified the protest and laid siege to the Kozhikode-Gudalur National Highway on Sunday morning disrupting traffic.
