5-yr-old girl injured in leopard attack

Two days after a leopard killed an elderly woman at Singhthwara village in the district, a five-year-old girl was also attacked and injured by a leopard in the same area, forest officials said on Sunday.

Deputy conservator of forest Mukesh Saini said that it was difficult to say whether both the attacks were made by the same animals, as the distance between the two incidents was more than 2 km. “An investigation is still on,” he said. The incident occurred on Saturday evening when a leopard entered the house of the girl, Hasina, picked her up and rushed towards the forest. Her parents, who were working outside the house, got alarmed by listening to the screams of their daughter and started a chase. After dragging the girl up to a distance of 500 metres, the leopard left her and got disappeared in the nearby bushes, said Manish, the girl’s uncle. He said the girl sustained facial injuries and a deep wound on her neck during the attack. She was taken to MB hospital for treatment.

Saini said that efforts were on to catch the animal. Four cages have been brought to trap the leopard, he said, adding that he has also written a letter to the chief wildlife warden (CWW) to declare the leopard a man-eater.

Over a dozen incidents of leopard attacks have taken place in Udaipur in last one year.