AFTER TWO minor boys were injured in separate incidents of leopard attacks in three days near Mendarda town in Junagadh, the forest department Thursday said a single carnivore could be nehind the twin attacks. They have placed 11 trap cages in Dedakadi range of Gir (west) wildlife division to rescue the animal.
Rohit Thakor, a five-year-old son of a migrant labuorer from Maharashtra, was attacked and injured by a leopard while he was asleep with his family in Alidhra village Wednesday night.
The attack was reported a day after Ravikumar Bhagat Singh, a six-year-old son of another migrant labourer couple from Mahara-shtra, was attacked and injured in adjoining Najapur village.
“The distance between the two areas is five to six kms. So, we cannot rule out the possibility of the same animal involved in both the incidents. Therefore, we have gone for a landscape approach to cage the animal. We have put up 11 cages, not just in the two villages from where the incidents were reported but in the nearby villages also so that even if the animal is moving in centrifugal or centripetal way, we can catch the animal,” Dheeraj Mittal, deputy conservator of forests (DCF) of Gir (west) wildlife division said.