Man Eater Leopard Captured Pune Shirur

The Maharashtra forest officials captured a man-eater leopard at Inamgaon in Pune district early on Saturday, exactly a month after the animal killed a woman at Pimpalsuti village in Shirur.

Range forest officer Nilkanth Gavhane said, “The leopard was spotted at a farm owned by Shrinivas Ghadge, at Nalgemala in Inamgaon in the early hours of Saturday. Our team tranquilized the leopard and captured it around 3.30 am. This leopard was involved in attacks on humans in the area.”

The animal has been sent to the Manikdoh Leopard Rescue Centre in Junnar.

The gory attack on the woman had sparked massive protests with villagers staging a road blockade to capture the leopard.

Since then, efforts were on to capture the leopard. The team led by Prashant Khade, Deputy Conservator of Forests (Junnar division), and Smita Rajhans, Assistant Conservator of Forests, installed 15 cages and 50 trap cameras at different locations, while drones were used to trace the leopard’s movement. Assistance was sought from Rescue Charitable Trust for carrying out the search operation.

In the last few days, the forest department has captured six leopards. Forest guards Bhanudas Shinde, Ganesh Doifode, Jalinder Sanap, Shekhar Jangawali, Ganesh Zirpe, Nana Chavan and members of the Rescue Team were part of the search operation, the department stated.