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Journalism of Courage
In a chilling incident, a labourer was attacked by a leopard at a brick kiln in Lakhimpur Kheri district, Uttar Pradesh. The incident was caught on camera, where the man fought off the big cat with his bare hands. The incident occurred on Tuesday afternoon in Baburi village.
The victim has been identified as Mihilal Gautam. The incident unfolded when he was collecting ash at the kiln when a leopard suddenly jumped at him from nearby fields. Despite suffering injuries, Mihilal fought the leopard, taking it on the ground for several minutes with his hands.
Shared by Ashutosh Tripathi, a journalist on X, the viral video shows the man bravely charging on the leopard while onlookers kept hurling bricks and stones from laptop the kiln to scare away the animal to shoo it away. The animal eventually escaped, however, leaving four people injured at the site.
“In Baburi village of Lakhimpur, a leopard attacked a labourer working at a brick kiln; the labourer fought with the leopard and ultimately saved his own life,” the caption read.
Watch the video here:
According to reports, Mihilal was rushed to a nearby hospital and later shifted to the district hospital, and is stable now. The Forest Department officials arrived shortly and managed to tranquilise and capture the leopard.
It is believed the animal may have entered the brick kiln from the nearby Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, which has seen a surge in wild animals entering human habitats in recent months.
On June 21, a leopard grabbed a young girl from a tea estate bordering Anamalai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu. The child remains missing while the rescue efforts are underway. In a similar incident, a 45-year-old man was mauled by a leopard while working in a paddy field in Uttar Pradesh’s Udham Singh district.
