Guwahati, March 13: The leopard that was locked in a cave temple by the residents of Nijarapar at Kahilipara hill died this morning 'because of dehydration,' according to Chandan Bora, divisional forest officer, Assam State Zoo.

The leopard was trapped in the cave yesterday morning after a few residents, who saw the animal, closed the only grille of the temple.

Throughout the day there was a crowd of people outside the temple who had come to have a look at the animal.

The crowd grew in size over the day as news channels started showing the incident on television.

Forest department officials tried to tranquillise the leopard but in vain.

They returned late evening with an iron cage to trap the leopard.

They opened the temple door with the cage a few feet away.

'When we went near the temple this morning and saw no leopard inside the cage, the first thought that came to our mind was that he might have evaded the trap and left the temple. But when we peeked into the temple we saw him lying motionless on the floor. It was dead,' a resident of the area said.

Some people in the area suspect that the leopard might have slipped through a gap into the temple.

There is a 10-feet deep gap in the cave from the side of the hill.

Bora said he had requested the police yesterday to take steps to keep the people away from the spot.

'I had sent people from my own forest battalion to coordinate with the police. People will have to cooperate otherwise this will keep on happening,' he said.

However, there was hardly any effort yesterday either from forest department officials or the police to keep people away from the cave and free the leopard from captivity.

According to those who have been associated with wildlife protection, Guwahati is a unique city that can boast of having rich biodiversity and if city residents continue to remain hostile to wild animals it would lose its diversity very soon.

According to them, there is no history of a leopard attacking people unless they are provoked or threatened.

They say leopards in the city started to come into human habitat because of reasons such as extensive loss of natural habitats, intensive urban human population and decreasing natural prey populations in the wild.