Leopard injures nine - Animal dies after rampage in town

Foresters trap the leopard in a net after tranquillisation. Picture by Biplab Basak

TT, Alipurduar, May 16: A leopard kept a small town in the Dooars on tenterhooks for over eight hours, attacking nine persons and playing a hide-and-seek chase with its captors.

The animal died after capture in the afternoon.

Three schools in Looksan town about 75km from Jalpaiguri, announced a holiday after news spread of the leopard attack.

Among the nine victims, three have sustained serious injuries. A forest ranger was also injured.

The male leopard was tranquillised by foresters around 2.30pm, but the animal died while it was being taken to Gorumara forest to be released there.

People said although leopard attacks were common in tea gardens, rarely did the animal enter a town like Looksan in the Dooars today. They said the leopard that went berserk at Looksan, near Nagrakata might have come out of the nearby Dyna forest.

Looksan has around 100-150 shops and the busy NH31 cuts across the town.

Witnesses said the leopard had been first spotted in a betel nut field adjacent to Caron railway station around 6am. The animal entered the house of Dilip Mahato and attacked him. It then made a dash for a corn field before storming another house and injuring Kanchha Chhetry.

“By then, a large number of people had gathered at the spot. Traders who had just opened the shops downed shutters. Nagrakata police as well as forest guards from the Binnaguri squad and Khunia range reached the spot,” said Surojit Biswas, a shopkeeper.

The leopard injured three more persons, including Khunia ranger Tarun Mahalanobis. It is not clear if the carnivore died from the injuries suspected to have been caused when people tried to chase the animal with sharp objects.

A group of youths carrying bamboo sticks and iron rods tried to attack the leopard and five of them were mauled by the animal. Around 2.30pm, the animal was darted and taken to Gorumara National Park but died on the way.