After second attack in 10 days, hunt on for killer leopard in Karnataka forest fringe

A massive hunt is on to capture a leopard, which killed a 75-year-old woman at a village recently on the forest fringe near Tumakuru district in Karnataka, the police officials said.

"A team of forest officials and guards launched a search during the day to spot the leopard in the Turuvekere forest range after it killed a woman at Kothaganahalli village on its fringe and disappeared," sub-inspector N Suresh told news agency IANS.

Turuvekere forest is around 125 km northwest of Bengaluru.

"The leopard appears to have killed the old woman before dawn and dragged her body behind the hutment 200-metre away. The victim's body and her disfigured head were found separated at the spot," Suresh said.

The victim's grandson, who woke up to find the old lady missing, was horrified when he found her bruised body away from their hutment and alerted the police, as the big cat's pug marks indicated that it went into the forest after killing the woman.

"The forest team will resume the hunt on Sunday morning to trace the feline after it called off the search in the evening at sunset," added Suresh.

The incident occurred two days after a leopard was spotted near the divider of an underpass road near Hyderabad in Telangana on Thursday.

Other similar incidents

In another similar incident, a three-year-old boy was also killed by a leopard near Kadaraiahna Palya on the outskirts of Bengaluru on May 9. Hemanth, the boy was killed by the leopard in the village near Magadi.

As the lockdown measures were relaxed in the state by this week, Hemanth, along with his mother travelled to their native village in Kadaraiahna Palya, located between Magadi and Gudemaranahalli road from Dodderi, near Kumbalogodu.

The leopard that killed Hemanth was trapped and released later into the woods. The same leopard must have returned back to the village according to the officials and killed another 68-year-old woman.

(With agency inputs)