12-yr-old killed in leopard attack in city

Barely 12 hours after a leopard was trapped in Aarey Colony, another leopard killed a 12-year-old boy at Adarsh Nagar in Aarey Colony premises on Saturday evening, Nikhil M Ghanekar reports.

Barely 12 hours after a leopard was trapped in Aarey Colony, another leopard killed a 12-year-old boy at Adarsh Nagar in Aarey Colony premises on Saturday evening.

HT Image

This is the third leopard attack this month, and the first casualty of the year. In 2012, six people were killed by leopards.

Around 6.30pm, a leopard lunged at Saurabh Thakurddin Yadav and dragged him away as he and his friend Aryan Yadav were relieving themselves in a thicket near Aarey Dairy. Aryan fled across to Adarsh Nagar for help, but by the time people reached the spot, there was no sign of the wild cat or the boy.

The forest department and the Aarey police recovered Yadav’s body around 8.15pm. “Yadav was dragged 800 metres into the forest. The leopard had clawed and bitten the boy’s neck,” said Uttam More, senior police inspector, Aarey police station.

Last year too, four of the victims mauled to death were attacked while they were crouched and relieving themselves.

Adarsh Nagar is close to a municipal compound, which houses five schools and where around 3,000 students come every day. On January 10, HT had reported that fearing leopard attacks, many students had stopped going to school.