Gurung at Alipurduar Hospital. Picture by Anirban Choudhury

Alipurduar, March 28: Ganesh Gurung saw an animal lying on the road and thought it was a dog. Minutes later, the 35-year-old tea garden worker found himself grappling with a leopard.

Gurung has lived to tell the tale with 22 injuries on his head, hands and left leg. According to doctors at Alipurduar Hospital, he is still not out of danger. They referred him to Siliguri after he started vomiting this morning.

Officials of Buxa Tiger Reserve are yet to trace the leopard, believed to be not quite full-grown.

Gurung, a worker of Bhatpara Tea Estate in Kalchini, was returning home last evening from the Gangutia forest of the tiger reserve, where he had gone to graze his cow. On the way, he spotted an animal lying on the road.

“I thought it was a dog and threw stones at it and tried to shoo it away. Suddenly, the animal pounced on me and bit me on my left hand and leg. That is when I realised that it was a young leopard,” Gurung said from his hospital bed here early this morning.

With no help around, Gurung somehow managed to get his hands around the leopard’s neck. “I pressed it with all my strength. The leopard thrashed around for a while and then became absolutely quiet and I thought it had died. But the moment I loosened my grip, the animal sprang back to life and attacked me. I put up my right hand to ward it off, but failed,” said Gurung.

The fight went on for another 10 minutes or so before the leopard let go of the badly mauled man and wandered off into the forest.

Gurung was found by his brother, Julan, a little later. “It had become dark and when Ganesh did not return, I and my friends started off towards the forest to look for him. On the road, we found him lying in a pool of blood, shouting for help. We took him to Latabari Health Centre, from where he was shifted to Alipurduar Hospital, around 35km away,” said Julan.

On March 23, another tea garden worker, Buddhiram Oraon of Dalshingpara, was mauled by a leopard when he was returning from the forest with cattle.

L.G. Lepcha, the field director of the tiger reserve, said a search is on for the leopard that attacked Gurung as it might also be injured.

“We will also sit down with forest villagers and ask them not to go inside forests with cattle,” said the field director.