A 5-year-old girl was killed by a leopard on the prowl in Kanlog area of Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. The animal pounced on the girl and ran towards the forest, where her clothes and body parts were recovered by the search parties.
The shocking incident happened around 10 pm on August 5, when the little girl went outside. As the family and neighbors rushed out of their houses after they heard the girl’s screams, the leopard fled into the forest. After searching the area for an hour, the child’s family reported the matter to the police.
Reportedly, the victim was Priyanka, daughter of Manoj from Bertoli village in Jharkhand and was living in a makeshift house with her grandparents in Kanlog while her parents are in Jharkhand.
The grandmother of the deceased said,
I was cooking rice around 8:30 pm last night when my granddaughter Priyanka went out to urinate. I heard the sound of a bucket falling and thought that she had slipped and rushed out. While I was looking for her, someone shouted that Priyanka is screaming in the jungle.
Afterward, massive search operations were launched and search teams from forest and wildlife departments also arrived. The search parties found some clothes of the girl with bloodstains on them, however, the search was abandoned late last night and resumed again on Friday morning.
A leopard kills a 5-year-old girl in Shimla’s Kanlog, where devastated family is hoping for the capture of the animal | Image: The News Himachal
SP Shimla Mohit Chawla said that the body parts including the head of the girl were recovered from a nearby forest in the morning. With human-wildlife conflicts on the rise, the movement of leopards is already reported in the area.
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Divisional Forest Office Krishan Kumar has advised people to stay alert while the forest department tries to catch the leopard.
The recent incident has sent panic waves among the locals. A cage has been put in place to capture the animal and camera traps are being installed to monitor the movement of the leopard.
Via: The News Himachal