13-yr-old boy killed in leopard attack in Pune village; mob sets forest dept office, vehicle on fire

Forest Department Officials have identified the deceased as Rohan Bombe, the son of a farmer from Pimparkhed village, located around 75 km from Pune city.

Assistant Conservator of Forest Smita Rajhans said, “Rohan was playing in the open space in front of his house, which is on a farm. Around 3.45 pm he was attacked by a leopard and was fatally injured. After the incident, a group of villagers set on fire a forest department vehicle and also the office of Rapid Response Force set up in Pimparkhed village in response to the multiple incidents of human-leopard conflict. Majority of the things in the office were gutted in the fire.”

Officials said that the situation remained tense in the village on Sunday afternoon, prompting the authorities to deploy police force to maintain law and order.

This is the second death in the leopard attack in Pimparkhed village and third in the area over a period of one month.

In the incident on October 12, Shivanya Shailesh Bombe (5) was killed in the leopard attack in the same Pimparkhed village. On October 22, a 70-year-old woman Bhagubai Rangnath Jadhav was killed in Jambut village, just seven kilometers away.

In April, an 85-year-old woman was killed in a leopard attack at a village in Shirur taluka. In the last week of September, a six- year-old boy who was studying in the open space in front of house in the village of Junnar taluka was killed by a leopard.

As many as eight deaths in the incidents of human-leopard conflict in Pune district were reported in 2024, with five of those deaths being that of children. These were the second highest toll reported in a year in the last 20 years.

After the back-to-back incidents of human-leopard conflict last year, the forest department had issued a red alert for 13 villages in a five square kilometer area in Junnar taluka. People in these villages were asked not to step out before 9 am and after 5 pm.

Subsequently the Pune district collector had notified over 230 villages from four talukas of Pune district — Junnar, Ambegaon, Shirur and Khed — as prone to disaster due to repeated incidents of human-leopard conflicts.
Considering various driving factors of such conflicts in the region, the forest department has focussed on creating awareness and sensitising villagers.

The State Forest Department has sent a proposal to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) to sterilise 36 female and 11 male leopards as a targeted birth control method to bring down the rate of increase of leopard population.

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