Three women killed; villagers demand killing of leopard in Pithoragarh
(Sourced from PTI)
Residents of the Devalthal area in Uttarakhand's Pithoragarh district, where three women were killed by a leopard recently, held a demonstration on Saturday demanding the killing of the leopard. "We are demanding the killing of the leopard, and a government job for one of the three children of the woman, who became the third victim of the leopard three days ago," Jagdish Kumar said.
According to Kumar, a former Zila Panchayat member from the area and who is leading the demonstration in Ramkot village, the Forest Department is not taking the incidents seriously and has deputed only one hunter to kill the leopard.
Sub-Divisional Forest Officer (SDFO) NC Pant said that a hunter has already been deputed in the area to kill the leopard. "We have urged the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) to depute a group of expert hunters as a single hunter will not be able to reach all the places where the leopard might be in hiding," Kumar said.
The villagers said that panic is mounting among them as the big cat is often spotted in the area. "We saw the leopard roaming in the area at 9 am on Saturday. We started shouting from behind our doors but failed to scare him away," Urmila, a woman from Chaupata village, said.
Some people, who were coming to Pithoragarh from Muwani on Friday night, made a short video clip of the killer leopard. "We spotted the leopard in the Mela Pani area and made a one-minute video clip of the animal. It appeared to be heading toward Rin village, but disappeared from the scene after some time," Bhupendra Singh said.
