Wildlife team rescues leopard from Srinagar’s Lasjan area

Officials said the leopard was spotted by residents of Lasjan, a suburban stretch of Srinagar with Jhelum on one side and Budgam district on the other; wildlife warden central, Altaf Hussain Dentoo, said the team managed to tranquillise the animal within two hours of the operation

A leopard was rescued by a wildlife team after it strayed into a residential area in Srinagar’s Lasjan on Tuesday.

A leopard was rescued by a wildlife team after it strayed into a residential area in Srinagar’s Lasjan on Tuesday. (HT file photo for representational purpose)

Officials said the leopard was spotted by residents of Lasjan, a suburban stretch of Srinagar with Jhelum on one side and Budgam district on the other.

The wildlife department sent a team early in the morning after the latest sighting. Wildlife warden central, Altaf Hussain Dentoo, said the team managed to tranquillise the animal within two hours of the operation.

“There were sightings of the animal by locals. The presence of the animal was already established and in the morning, we sent a team which did well to capture it within two hours from the residential area,” he added.

Dentoo said the operation was clean with no injury to the animal or any person.

A local, Showkat Ahmad, said the animal was sighted on Monday.

Dentoo suspected that the animal, an adult, might have sneaked into the Lasjan area from the nearby Chadoora stretch of the Budgam district.

“We will be leaving the animal back into its natural habitat,” he said.

“In this area we do get calls but today, there was a sighting,” he added.

Previous man-animal encounters

In March 2022, a leopard was spotted and ultimately captured in Srinagar’s high-security Church Lane area near the foothills of Zabarwan mountain range, triggering panic in the neighbourhood that is home to Kashmir’s prominent politicians and top civil servants.

In June 2021, a four-year-old girl was mauled to death after she was taken away by a leopard from the lawn of her house in Budgam district.

In January, 2021, a leopard, spotted jumping walls in Srinagar’s residential Bagh-e-Mehtab area, was caught from an abandoned building after five days of frantic searches by wildlife officials.

As per the official data, 196 people have lost their lives and over 2,300 sustained injuries in man-animal conflict across Jammu and Kashmir from 2011 to 2021.

Kashmir reported 118 deaths and 1,877 injuries while the Jammu region reported 78 fatalities and 448 injuries.