Gram Pradhan fights leopard, saves son

Gram Pradhan of Rausal in Lohaghat tehsil, Indira Devi, returned home on Thursday to find her son being carried away by the leopard, forest officials said. Getting hold of a sickle which was lying nearby, Indira leaped onto the beast and struck it with the sickle. In the scuffle, she was also hurt but the animal, apparently shocked by the attack, left the injured boy behind and fled into the nearby forest area, they added.

Indira and Naresh were taken to hospital, where their condition was stated to be stable. In a similar incident last year, a young Nepali woman had grappled with a leopard and saved her infant near Dehradun.

Only a day after Indira Devi chased away the leopard, the man-eater attacked a teenaged girl, Manju, in Kamraili village, said Ram Mani Pandey, District Forest Officer DFO, Champawat.

The leopard, which has spread terror in Lohaghat, has already killed eight children in the past one year, according to forest officials. The Forest department had even employed four hunters to rid the area of the man-eater, but without any success.