Gurung who was mauled by a leopard. A file picture

Mechpara Tea Estate (Alipurduar), April 3: The decomposing body of an adult leopard with broken nails on its front paws was found here yesterday, leading foresters to suspect that it is the same animal that had attacked a worker of an adjacent tea garden on March 27.

Ganesh Gurung, a worker of Bhatpara Tea Estate, had grappled with the leopard for nearly half-an-hour, locking his hands around the animal’s neck as he tried to shake it off.

Although badly mauled, Gurung managed to survive the attack and is currently under treatment at North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri.

Bhatpara and Mechpara are located on the fringes of Buxa Tiger Reserve (BTR).

“A post-mortem has been conducted on the leopard’s body, but we are yet to get the report,” said A.P. Singh, the deputy field director of BTR (West). “However, from the extent of decomposition, we are quite sure that the animal died at least five days ago. The nails on the leopard’s front paws were broken. So we cannot rule out the possibility that this is the same animal that attacked Gurung last week.”

P.K. Jain, the senior assistant manager of Mechpara, said leopards from the adjacent forests often move between his garden and Bhatpara, which is only 4km away. “Last Friday, a couple of cows were killed here, probably by a leopard,” Jain said.

Worker mauled

Minu Bhuniya, a worker of the closed Bamandanga Tea Estate in Nagrakata, was attacked by a leopard this afternoon and required 35 stitches on her face, neck and body, reports our Jaigaon correspondent.

The operations and management committee of the garden said a number of workers’ families lost their cattle to similar attacks in the past few days.