M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, Dec 20: The Garhwa district has been again struck by a leopard attack. On Monday evening, a 6-year-old girl identified as Sita Kumari of village Sewadeeh Kherwar tola under the Ranka block was fatally wounded by the leopard who had an instantaneous death on the site in the jungle.
The conservator of forest, Garhwa, Dileep Kumar Yadav confirmed the casualty.
The leopard could not drag her far because of the hue and cry raised by the family and co-villagers. With this fatality, the number of human lives lost to the leopard goes to 2 in the district.
The Garhwa Conservator of forest on being asked if the Ranka casualty of human life was caused by the same leopard that had killed and half-eaten the body of a boy five days ago, he said, “We are to cross-check and ascertain if this killing is by the same leopard which had killed and half-eaten the boy of Bhandariya block or the one of the west range of Chhipadohar of PTR.”
On the question of if the pug marks of the leopard can help to find out the leopard in all these three tragic episodes, he said, “Pug marks will give the clue to the identity of the leopard. Our people have discovered the pugmark in the Ranka tragedy. They have also been found in the west range of the Chhipadohar. We are trying to find out if pug marks of the Bhandariya attack are also discovered.”
When asked if it calls for declaring the leopard a man-eater, the conservator of the forest said that there is a guideline to declare any big cat like a tiger, leopard etc becoming a man-eater. The National Tiger Conservation Authority has a full SoP for it. He agreed that the leopard is both man-killing and man-eating.
The guideline to declare leopard a man-eater calls for prompt action without waiting for more lives to be lost wherein section 11 (1) (a) gives the authority to the chief wildlife warden of the state to permit any person to ‘hunt’ such wildlife that has become a man-eater.
On this, Dileep Kumar Yadav said that the chief wildlife warden is the right authority in this connection. “However, the major issue is related to the identity of the leopard if it is the same who attacked the other two minors,” he said.
On being questioned if the authority has taken any proactive role to contain the leopard after the Bhandariya tragedy, he said, “We had installed camera traps soon after the Bhandarya tragedy. The leopard did not come. We had put up a cage with a goat inside it but did not show up.”
Notably, the distance between the two blocks in Garhwa where the minors lost their lives is vast. “This is a big surprise for all of us. This leopard must have traversed 30 km or so. It is wildly moving,” Dileep added.
He also informed that the leopard had attacked a calf of the buffalo. “Our men are on the track but its agility is tremendous,” he said.
He went on to say that he is going to submit a detailed report to the principal chief conservator of forest and chief wildlife warden Jharkhand Shashikar Samanta as it is mandated.
“Our heart goes out to families which have lost their kids. We understand their grief. We are trying hard to contain the leopard. We know the task is big and challenging. We will pursue it to the end of the leopard menace. We urge people to avoid going near the jungle. Our team is fully activated to locate and track the leopard,” he appealed.
Notably, the first human life lost to leopard in the Garhwa district was of a boy Vikram Turi of Rodo village under Bhandarya block on December 14. The animal had eaten more than half of the body of this boy.
The second girl whom the leopard attacked and fatally wounded in the neck yesterday was lucky enough not to become the feast of the leopard as villagers saved her from being dragged by the leopard.
Apart from this, on December 10, one girl was critically injured by a leopard in the west range of Chhipadohar of the Palamu Tiger Reserve in Latehar district who succumbed to her injuries during treatment in government MMC Daltonganj in Palamu district.
