Bhanu P Lohumi
Tribune News Service
Shimla, August 6
In a shocking incident, a leopard on the prowl pounced on a five-year-old minor girl in the Kanlog area of Shimla last evening and ran towards nearby forests.
The incident took place around 8:30 pm and the parents of the child reported the matter to the police, an hour after searching the area.
Massive search operations were launched and teams of forest and wildlife departments were also reached, but there was no clue.
However, the body parts including the head of the child were recovered from a nearby jungle in the morning, said SP Shimla Mohit Chawla.
The search parties also found some clothes of the child with bloodstains on it. The search operations were abandoned late Thursday night, and resumed again on Friday morning.
The victim identified as Priyanka is the daughter of Manoj from Bertoli village in Jharkhand and was living with her grandparents while her parents are in Jharkhand.
"I was cooking rice around 8:30 pm last night when my granddaughter Priyanka went out to urinate. I heard the sound of a bucket felling and thought that she had slipped and rushed out. While I was looking for her, someone shouted that Priyanka is screaming in the jungle", said the grandmother of the deceased minor girl.
The parents of the girl were in the village.
A cage has been put in place, and we are also installing camera traps to monitor the movement of Leopard, said Principal Conservator Archna Sharma.
The movement of leopards is already reported in this area as human-animal conflict is on the rise.
Panic gripped the people of the area and an alert has been sounded. Earlier, also on June 21, a leopard had entered a house in the Krishna Nagar area of the town in the wee hours of the morning, and attacked a youth, but the boy showed exemplary courage and locked the leopard in the toilet.
Courtesy: Tribune News Service