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| Villagers carry the leopard carcass in Dibrugarh district on Wednesday. Picture by Raju Mishra |
Jorhat, March 13: A mob killed an adult female leopard in a village under Khowang forest range in Dibrugarh district this afternoon after the big cat attacked four persons, including two children.
With today’s incident, seven leopards have been killed across the state this year, six of them in Upper Assam.
On Monday, a female leopard was killed by angry workers of Tifuk tea estate under Geleky police station in Sivasagar district after the big cat that had strayed into the tea garden attacked a woman.
Khowang range officer Bhaskar Jyoti Buragohain told The Telegraph this evening that an angry group of villagers of Khowang Pathalibam gaon, armed with machetes, axes, and other weapons killed the leopard after it attacked two children playing near a stream besides the Jatiya Vidyalaya school.
It also attacked two other persons who chased it.
Buragohain said the forest team, led by him and a police party from Moran police station, tried to pacify the villagers and had planned to tranquillise the wild animal. Accordingly, arrangements had been made to bring a veterinary team.
However, the range officer said the crowd swelled to nearly a thousand after two persons, Rikheshwar Gogoi and Suresh Chawra, were injured.
The armed mob outnumbered the forest and police team and chased the leopard away to a paddy field from the bushes near the stream where it was hiding and killed it instantly.
The forest staff collected the carcass of the animal.
Both the injured have been admitted to the Moran Medical Centre and are undergoing treatment.
A mob had last month killed a leopard that strayed from Gibbon wildlife sanctuary and attacked a woman worker inside Dukhlangia tea estate under Mariani range in the district.
Assam forest minister Rakibul Hussain had issued a directive on January 19 to all district forest officers to file an FIR against anybody who kills or even attacks wild animals.
He also announced a forest official, if attacked, should also file an FIR.
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