(IN): Mob defies police, batters leopard A STAFF REPORTER

[Guest guest]

Link:

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080426/jsp/northeast/story_9190984.jsp

 

Mob defies police, batters leopard A STAFF REPORTER

 

Guwahati, April 25: A bloodthirsty mob in a Sivasagar village today

battered a leopard to death, refusing to let even police's blank

shots come in the way of their savage " revenge " .

 

The predator had dragged away a goat from Darika Mech gaon and was

savouring his kill in a nearby forest, when Jintu Phukon stumbled

upon it while looking for firewood.

 

A frightened scream brought two of his companions, Indrajit Duori

and Tileswar Mech, rushing in. The leopard lunged at the trio before

fleeing into a bamboo grove.

 

Soon a large group of villagers gathered in the forest, armed with

sharp weapons.

Forest department personnel, accompanied by police, too, arrived on

being informed.

 

The police fired in the air to disperse the crowd, which by then had

swelled to over a hundred.

 

Defying the firing, the villagers closed in on the leopard, which

was cowering in the bamboo grove, and smashed its head before

tearing its limbs apart.

 

A villager, Putukon Mech, was injured when the leopard clawed him

during the " fight " . The four injured have been admitted to the civil

hospital.

 

The leopard's carcass has been sent to the veterinary hospital for

post-mortem.

 

A forest official at the site said despite repeated pleas by the

police to leave the leopard alone, the villagers remained adamant.

 

" They insisted on killing the animal. The police tried to frighten

them off by resorting to blank firing but that seemed to anger them

even more, " he said.

 

The divisional forest official of Sivasagar, Utpal Bora, said: " We

are trying our best to save the leopards from human attacks but it

seems we are fighting a losing battle. "

This is the third leopard to be killed in the district in the past

two months.

 

The forest department recently erected cages in Jorhat and Sivasagar

districts to capture leopards from human habitats and release them

in national parks and sanctuaries.

 

Simanta Barthakur, president of Doya, a Sivasagar-based NGO working

to prevent cruelty to animals, said Sivasagar and Jorhat districts

have almost turned into a killing field for leopards.

 

" We have been trying our best to spread the message of preserving

and protecting wildlife among the villagers but nothing seems to be

working, " he said.

 

The NGO recently helped the forest department cage a leopard at

Kalugaon in the district.

 

Villagers of Bortekela in the Kalugaon recently killed a rare

pangolin and feasted on it, a member of the NGO said.