HD Kote (Mysore) July 21 :-
A fully-grown male leopard which strayed into Niluvagulu, a village in HD Kote taluk on Sunday, created havoc before succumbing to the blows with sticks inflicted by the villagers.
This four-hour incident took place on Sunday as no forest official came to the rescue of the villagers who had sounded the officials about the attack of the leopard on the villagers. The villagers sensing that no rescue would come from the forest officials, cornered the leopard and rained blows with sticks. Unable to withstand the blows of the stick the leopard succumbed to its injuries.
According to the villagers, the leopard was first spotted on Sunday at 10.30 a.m. near the fields of Niluvagulu, 12 km from HD Kote. Then it began terrifying the villagers by attacking two passers by namely Nagaraju and Suresh. After injuring them both the leopard went into hide for 30 minutes and came back afresh to attack two farmers Malaiah and Ravi who were searching for the leopard.
However, the villagers survived the leopard’s attack and when it struck again by 12.30 noon, the villagers cornered the leopard and rained blows with sticks leading to the death of the leopard.
The injured villager Nagaraju, said that the villagers have informed the forest officials immediately after the wild cat attacked two villagers, but they didn’t come to our rescue till 3 pm. There is a wildlife division in the HD Kote and the officials could have rescued the animal had they responded swiftly.
According to another version of the villagers, the leopard fell on a sharp rock during the melee and died because of head injury. The Conservator of Forests B P Ravi, DFO Srinivas and RFO Pramod visited the spot and said that appropriate action would be taken after the post mortem report.