In what comes as a relief to the people of several Maharashtra districts, a man-eater leopard was put down permanently by the Solapur forest department. The killer animal was shot dead on Friday after attempts to tranquilize the big cat failed.
The leopard had mauled at least 8 people and injured others across four districts in Maharashtra, but was shot dead in a banana farm near Bitargaon village in Karmala tehsil on Friday evening.
"The leopard had killed at least eight people and injured four others across Solapur, Beed, Ahmednagar and Aurangabad districts. After being spotted in the banana farm on Friday evening, we tried to tranquilise the animal first, but as the attempts failed, it was finally shot dead," divisional conservator of forests (Solapur) Dhairyashil Patil was quoted as saying by PTI.
Order to kill man-eater leopard
In view of the killings, a directive was issued to kill the leopard earlier this month. The leopard had mauled a nine-year-old girl in Karmala.
Various departments, including the police, the State Reserve Police Force besides multiple forest officials teams, were tasked with tracing the killer leopard. The teams had been on the hunt for the last fortnight and finally put the fears of villagers to rest.
