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Leopard enters house in Shahapur taluka, rescued after being locked for 8 hours
A female leopard that entered a house in Umbarkhand village in Khardi, Shahapur taluka, Thane district, on Tuesday morning was rescued by forest department officials and a team from Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SNGP)
A female leopard that entered a house in Umbarkhand village in Khardi, Shahapur taluka, Thane district, on Tuesday morning was rescued by forest department officials and a team from Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SNGP). It was stuck in the house for at least eight hours. The rescue operations took two hours.
As per the forest officials, the leopard, which is around 2-3 years old, entered the house of Madhukar Lahu Nimse while he and his family were asleep. As soon as the family realised, they left the house and locked the leopard inside and informed the Khardi forest team.
“The leopard entered the kitchen and when the family heard its growl, they rushed out of the house. They also locked the house and alerted their neighbours. Some of them also clicked pictures of the leopard while it was peeping out of the window. Our team reached the spot after confirming the presence of the leopard inside the house,” said Laxman Chikhale, range forest officer.
“After reaching there, SGNP was informed. In two hours, our team managed to rescue the animal after tranquilising it. No one was injured in the operation,” added Chikhale.
At around 6.30pm, the leopard was released at a safe location in its natural habitat in the same locality, said the forest officials.
Madhukar, 45, who was sleeping inside the house with his wife and two children, woke up to the sound of the chickens in the backyard at around 2am. He and his wife went to the back door of the house to check.
“As soon as I opened the door, the animal jumped into the house and we were scared as we had no clue as to what animal it was. He moved away and tried looking for the animal and found that it entered the kitchen area. There was some light in that area that made us realise it was a leopard. The animal was trying to jump out of the window,” said Limse.
“I told my wife to move to the hall, where our kids were asleep. She somehow woke them up and rushed to the front door. They rushed out and put the latch of the door from outside. I also closed the backdoor and latched it. It was a scary experience as the leopard could have attacked any one of us. Never in all these years did we come across any such leopard in this village,” he added.
Limse, who works in a factory nearby, said that he has been living in this house since his childhood.
“We need to understand how the leopard entered the house. The family panicked. We will question them and try to understand how the leopard made its way into the house,” informed another officer of the forest department.
