Leopard kills 11-year-old girl during pilgrimage in Gujarat’s Junagadh

“She went a few feet off the Parikrama to answer nature’s call and was attacked by a leopard and dragged deeper inside the forest. Her relatives saw this and raised an alarm,” Joshi told The Indian Express.

“Our staff posted in a camp a few hundred metres away from the place of incident and the police responded quickly. They found the girl lying motionless 100 m from the designated Parikrama route around 8 am with serious injuries on her legs. She was rushed to a Junagadh hospital, where she was pronounced dead,” he added.

“There is a very heavy rush of pilgrims. Till Friday morning, six lakh pilgrims had entered the forest. That number rose to around eight lakh by 4 pm,” Joshi said. He added that one rescue team from Sasan wildlife division, which was on standby along the Parikrama route, is trying to cage the leopard while another team from Sasan is on way to join efforts to find the animal.

Forest officials said that due to crowd of devotees, rescuers are finding it difficult to bring trap cages to the place where the leopard had attacked the girl.

The week-long Parikrama began on Wednesday and is scheduled to culminate on November 27. “There is no record of any wild animal having attacked a pilgrim during Parikrama. This is for the first time that such an incident has happened,” said Joshi.
“There are 56 lions in Girnar Wildlife Sanctuary and the leopard population is higher than that of lions. Our staff is making all efforts to keep the pilgrims safe,” he added.

Bordevi is 9 km northeast of Bhavnath Taleti, the foothill of Girnar from where the Parikrama begins and ends.