Leopard kills 5-year-old girl sleeping with family in Pune’s Shirur taluka

Officials said the girl’s family raised an alarm and attempted to scare the animal away, but it ran into a nearby sugarcane field with the girl. The incident was immediately reported to the cattle shed’s owner, following which the forest department, police, and villagers were informed.

After forest officials arrived, they launched a search operation in the sugarcane field. The girl was eventually traced and rushed by ambulance to the Rural Hospital in Nhavare. Doctors at the hospital declared her dead before treatment.

“We have stepped up patrolling and are deploying trap cameras and trap cages,” said a forest department officer.

Recurring human-animal conflict

Pune district has witnessed recurring incidents of human-leopard conflict in recent years. Last year, the Junnar forest division saw a spate of leopard attacks, with three people—two of them children—killed within less than three weeks between October and November.

Shirur taluka then witnessed widespread public outrage, resulting in arson and a highway blockade and culminating in the forest department shooting dead a suspected man-eater leopard during a late-night operation after attempts to tranquilise it failed.