Leopard enters courtroom in Gujarat, halts proceedings
AHMEDABAD: Proceedings at a local court of Chotila in Gujarat’s Surendranagar district came to a standstill on Friday afternoon when the complex had an unexpected visitor– a leopard.
Except for two clerks, others including the judge, lawyers, and staff managed to come out and locked the big cat inside. The trapped staff members locked themselves in separate adjoining rooms. They remained trapped for a couple of hours until one was taken out by bringing down a wall and another one by breaking the window.
By evening, the forest department teams tranquilised the leopard and caged it.
The court is located in the town, which is famous for hillock named Chotila – a popular pilgrimage. The hillock is surrounded by forests where leopards are found.
“Around 11 am, suddenly a leopard jumped into the room, where some 12 to 14 staff members were working. While others managed to go out of the room, I locked myself in the adjoining room, which does not have a separate entrance,’’ said employee Haresh Parmar.
His colleague Uday Bhatt, locked himself in another room, which also does not have a separate entrance. “The animal was just 15-16 feet away from me when I rushed to the adjoining room and closed the common door behind me,” said Bhatt.
P D Parmar, Chotila police inspector said: “We brought down the wall in which Parmar was trapped. It took us around 2 hours. At the same time, another police team, with the help of forest department staff and locals, broke a window and brought Bhatt out of the room’.”
The forest department teams from Rajkot, Surendranagar, and Junagadh arrived around 4 pm, tranquilised the animal and caged him. “First, we got a message of leopard presence from nearby vacant railway quarters. By the time a team could reach there, the animal rushed into the court premises’’, said Chotila forester Gajendrabha Zala.
The officer added a health check-up will be done and then the animal will be released in the wild.
“There are some 5 to 6 leopards present in Mandav forest near Chotila. This is the first instance that animal has come into the city,’’ Gajendrabha added.
For the state, this was the second incident. On Nov 2, Gujarat secretariat was closed for many hours when security cameras footage revealed that a leopard entered into the complex.