Hunters killed leopard that had carried away a boy in Dehradun village

Exactly a week after a leopard dragged away a 10-year-old boy from Dehradun’s Baiajwala village, a team of licensed hunters engaged by the Uttarakhand’s forest department shot dead it (leopard) late on Friday evening. Villagers of Bajawala & Phulsaini were living under fear ever since the recovery of partially eaten body of the boy Krishna Kumar from near their villages on last Friday (January 16).

“With the help of pug marks, we have confirmed that it was the same leopard that had dragged away the boy from near his slum at Bajawala village. It is about six years old and a female leopard. We will complete the formalities of post mortem tomorrow,” Sushant Patnaik, DFO (Dehradun), told the Indian Express at Forest Rest House at Jhajhara where leopard’s body was kept.

With the killing of the leopard, villagers of Phulsaini and Bajawala heaved a sigh of relief. “We are happy that hunters finally killed the leopard,” said Anil Joshi, a villager, who came to Jhajhara to see the leopard’s body.

Dr Prashant, one of the hunters engaged by the state’s forest department, said his team had got confirmed the leopard’s movement in the area today’s morning. “Since it rained, we had hoped about its movement. It was around 6.30 pm the leopard had come near the goat kept as goat for the leopard close to the Machan set up by us. The team members shot dead it,” Prashant said.