Leopard rescued near Gurugram; 13-year-old injured

Gurugram forest department inspector Rajesh Chahal said they captured the leopard after tranquillising it with the help of the city police

A leopard strayed into a village near Gurugram on Wednesday morning and injured a 13-year-old boy, officials aware of the matter said, adding that the animal was rescued after a 6-hour operation by the wildlife department and police.

The leopard after it was rescued by the forest department team from Narsinghpur village. (PTI)

The officials said the incident took place in Narsinghpur, around 8km from Gurugram on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway near Kherki Daula. They said the leopard entered the village at around 6am, jumped into the house of Devi Lal — where it injured 13-year-old Prabhat Mishra — and when the family raised an alarm, jumped into Satbir Tanwar’s house next door, where it was trapped and eventually rescued from.

“The leopard was fit and is not injured. It seems to have come over to this area from neighbouring Aravallis, where sometimes the bigger cats try to dominate the geographical area and push smaller leopards outside their domain,” said Anil Gandas, a wildlife activist who participated in the rescue operation.

Wildlife officials said the leopard is male, is only around 4 years old, and probably entered the village in search of food. They also suspect that it is the same animal that was spotted multiple times over the past four months near the village — particularly in forested land, where Global City project is coming up.

Giving details of Wednesday’s incident, Narsinghpur villagers said the leopard was first spotted in the house of Nafe Singh, but when they (the villagers) raised an alarm, the leopard panicked, and when a wildlife team arrived and tried to capture the animal using nets, it escaped and entered Devi Lal’s house.

“It was at this house that the leopard injured the boy (Prabhat). We raised an alarm, and the animal jumped the wall and went to the house of Satbir Tanwar,” said Rambir Singh, sarpanch of the village.

Prabhat’s mother Kanchan Mishra said, “The neighbours started shouting and throwing things towards the leopard and this distracted him and he moved towards other tenants. This gave time to Prabhat, who was bleeding, to rush inside the room.”

Beauty Kumari, a tenant in the building, said Prabhat was carrying a pail of water when the leopard suddenly jumped in front of him. “After the leopard attacked, some neighbours made loud noises and distracted the animal. The leopard suddenly left the boy and moved toward the neighbours, but they immediately went inside the room and shut the door. The wildlife officials then chased the leopard, which managed to escape,” she said.

The boy was bitten on his thigh, and the leopard left deep gashes on his shoulder. He was later admitted to the civil hospital in Sector 10, where doctors treated him for his injuries in the surgical ward.

Tanwar’s relative Mithilesh Devi said that she saw the leopard coming towards their house at around 10.30am, and immediately alerted other family members. Meanwhile, the leopard, she said, entered a two-room set inside their house. “We were relieved when the wildlife team managed to lock the leopard in the rooms,” she said.

Wildlife officials said once the leopard was trapped inside the rooms, their team, assisted by local policemen, managed to capture and rescue the animal.

“We removed bricks from the walls of the room to create holes, through which we fired two darts at the animal to sedate it. We then gave the leopard another tranquiliser manually, and at around 1.15pm, the leopard walked into a cage we had installed outside the room,” said Rajesh Chahal, wildlife inspector, Gurugram, who led the rescue team.

He said the leopard will be medically examined and thereafter released in the forest area.

Prabhat’s family, however, is scared about returning home. “We never thought that a wild animal would be able to enter such a crowded place. My son is injured and he will remain in hospital for a few days. We are scared that the leopard might come back to the village and attack people again,” his mother said.