New Tehri: (Uttarakhand): A leopard was shot dead in Uttarakhand’s Tehri district by Forest department shooters Tuesday evening. The killing of the leopard took place hours after it had mauled a woman to death. She was the second victim of the animal in a just three days.
The leopard had terrorised the residents of Cham and Durogi villages of the district killing two women in just three days. The animal had also injured one person over a week ago. It was shot dead by shooters S Chauhan and Zaheer Baksh, a Forest department official said.
The 50-year-old Gundri Devi was attacked by the leopard when she was working in a field Tuesday morning, forest ranger Devendra Singh Pundir informed. The woman’s body bearing deep wounds on the neck was found a few hours later in a gorge, he added.
The big cat had lifted and killed a woman from her courtyard Saturday last and left her half-eaten body in the fields. Before that, it had killed livestock of the villagers besides injuring a woman who continues to be under treatment.
A Forest department team had been camping in the village since Saturday. It was trying to either cage the leopard or shoot it.
Villagers were livid with the Forest department personnel after the leopard killed another woman in the village. Living in constant fear of being attacked by the big cat, residents of villages in Hindolakhal area of the district heaved a sigh of relief when it was shot dead.
Forest department officials pointed out that the leopard could have killed more human beings as it had turned into a man-eater. Caging it and shifting it to another forest wouldn’t have made much of a difference, they added.
