Mumbai’s Film City shut after five leopard attacks
Maharashtra forest department has asked Film City in Goregaon to stop shooting at outdoor sites for the next eight days till a leopard suspected of attacking five children in the area is trapped.
Officials from the Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari confirmed eight locations where films or television series are shot have been closed. Film City is on the boundary of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), which has a leopard population of over 20, and the Aarey Milk Colony, where the cats are known to enter in search of prey.
The forest department has set up two trap cages in a radius of 5km of the site of the attacks, which killed one person, between March and July.
On Friday, 13-year-old Aarey Milk Colony resident, Aniket Dileep Page, was attacked by a leopard near the Aarey pump house around 3.30pm. On July 22, twoyear-old Vihaan Nilesh Garuda, son of a staff member at SGNP, was killed, probably by the same leopard. On May 29, a four-yearold boy, resident of Royal Palms, Goregaon, was attacked by a leopard. On March 17, a three-yearold boy was attacked by a leopard near Khadakpada, a tribal hamlet. On May 21, a three-year-old boy was saved by his mother after she snatched her child away from the claws of a leopard that had pounced on him in Chafyachapada, Aarey.
After the attacks, officers had narrowed down to one leopard that they think is responsible for all attacks. The department sought permission from the chief wildlife warden, state forest, for trapping the animal. “As per our camera trap images, the leopard, has been moving close to the cages but due to the movement of some vehicle in the vicinity, the animal runs away,” said Santosh Kank, range forest officer, Mumbai forest range.