Kannur: A beat forest officer was injured in a leopard attack during a search operation at Palathumkadavu in Ayyankunnu panchayat of Iritty taluk on Wednesday evening. His colleagues fired a sound gun into the air to scare the animal away and rescue him. The 10-year-old male leopard was later found dead in a nearby thicket.

The injured officer, K Rahul, was pawed by the leopard and sustained a deep nail injury on his left arm. He remains under observation at Kannur District Hospital, the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Rajeevan M said on Thursday.

The incident occurred around 5.30 pm near the Barapole riverside stretch of KSEB's solar project area. Praveen and Dhanesh, employees of the KSEB solar division who had arrived to take meter readings, first spotted the leopard. Frightened, they ran and climbed onto a solar panel structure and alerted authorities.

Residents led by panchayat member Mary Reji, along with a forest department team comprising Iritty Section Forest Officer Sunil Kumar and beat forest officers K Rahul, Amal and Sarika, reached the spot.

On being informed that the leopard had moved into a nearby overgrown patch, the forest team began a search. During the search operation, the animal attacked Rahul. The team immediately fired the 12-bore pump-action gun into the air. The loud sound drove the leopard away and enabled them to pull the officer to safety.  Rahul was first taken to a hospital in Iritty for primary treatment and later shifted to Kannur District Hospital.

In the follow-up search, the leopard was found dead. Sharing the details of the autopsy, Kottiyoor Range officer T Nidhin Raj said that a special committee of experts found a swollen injury on the thigh of the left hind leg, along with a wound on the paw of the left foreleg. The right hind leg was found to be fractured. Around the fracture site, a tumour mass had formed. 

DFO Rajeevan, who was part of the autopsy team, said the injuries were old and had severely restricted its movement. "The injury had been left unattended and had aggravated over time. It began affecting internal organs, including the lungs," the DFO said. Because of the pain and weakness, the leopard was unable to hunt or move normally, he said. That was why it could not move out despite noticing human movement, he said.

The autopsy conducted at the Aralam RRT headquarters hospital found that the animal had been surviving on frogs and rats, Rajeevan said.

Nidhin Raj said the animal was off feed for several days and was severely dehydrated and anaemic. The lungs were heavily infested with lungworms and contained blood-mixed sputum. The autopsy concluded that the  cause of death was internal bleeding, which prevented the heart from pumping enough blood to the body, he said.