Udaipur, September 24, 2024 - The Chief Conservator of Forests, Udaipur, Sunil Chhidri; DCF Gogunda Ajay Chittora; CI Gogunda Shaitan Singh; and Naresh Soni, SDM, were among the officers present along with the District Collector of Udaipur, Arvind Poswal, at the site after the leopards were caught in Gogunda last night.

Speaking to the media, Poswal said the leopards will be shifted to the Biological Park facility at Sajjangarh in Udaipur and after initial treatment and opinions, the Forest Department will decide what needs to be done moving on.

SDM Naresh Soni informed that one of the leopards caught was ageing and did not have its canines. Experts identified this as the leopard that had killed the three people in separate attacks occurring in Undithal, Bheoriya and Chhali recently. Soni said that since the leopard was aged and had lost its canines, it was most likely to go for soft targets, including humans. Furthermore, the animals were captured in the same area where the attacks on the villagers had taken place, leaving little doubt that the aged leopard among the two caught was the man-eater being searched for the past six days.

DCF Gogunda Chittora appreciated the assistance of the villagers in this search mission. He explained that three cages were kept in the area where the third and last attack took place (Chhali). He added that the drones and other equipment used for the monitoring assisted the team in locating the wild animals.

Readers may recall that three people had been killed in separate attacks by a leopard last week near Udaipur leading to panic and fear among the villagers living nearby. A major joint search operation was being carried out by the Army and Forest Department since last week leading to the capture of the animals last night.