Rourkela, Dec. 10: A forest volunteer detected the carcass of a five-year-old leopard at Lakhanpur, bordering Sundargarh and Jharsuguda districts and Raigarh in Chhattisgarh.

Jharsuguda district forest officer Arjun Kumar Behera told The Telegraph: "It's a very young leopard, which is around five years old. A volunteer of the Gramya Sanrkhyana Samiti gave us the information about the carcass. In all probabilities, the leopard was killed sometime on December 8 and brought here and dumped. We have found motorcycle tyre marks near the body."

"Its nails, some teeth and the tip of the tail are missing. It appears to be a case of poaching. Someone killed it for those body parts, which are in great demand in the market," said the officer.

He said the area was inaccessible on foot, and the only way of getting to that place was by motorcycle. "The leopard was killed elsewhere. We do not have tiger in this jungle. It must have strayed in and got killed," said Behera. A local villager, too, said there were no tigers in the area. "It might have strayed into the area from the Hemgiri forest. Three months ago, tiger pug marks were spotted in the area."

Behera said: "Injury marks were found on its face, especially near the mouth, which I believe, was caused by crackers. People would use meat pieces filled with crackers. This would act as traps to draw and kill carnivorous animals."

On the possibility of electrocution, which is a pretty common practice in the Belpahar range, Behera said: "I am not sure, but this is an all-Odisha phenomenon. The post-mortem report would certainly confirm the cause of death."