India News | U'khand: Leopard Which Killed 7-yr-old Boy in Tehri Shot Dead by Forest Dept Hunters

New Tehri, Apr 19 (PTI) A leopard, which had killed a seven-year-old boy three days ago in Akhodi village of Uttarakhand's Tehri district, was gunned down on Tuesday by forest department hunters.

The leopard was about seven years old with worn out teeth and broken nails. This may have turned it into a man-eater, forest department officials said.

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Big cats in this condition usually hunt easy preys.

The leopard had made the boy, Naveen, its prey on April 16 evening in Akhodi, due to which the forest department declared it a man-eater and deployed hunters Gambhir Singh Bhandari and Joy Hukil to kill it on the demand of angry villagers.

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The department had also installed four trap cameras to trace the location of the leopard.

Forest Range Officer Ashish Nautiyal said that on Monday night, the leopard reached the same spot where it had eaten the child. Bhandari fired at the leopard, injuring him but it fled from the spot, he said.

The leopard could not be spotted despite a search throughout the night but on Tuesday morning, it was found lying among the bushes near a drain, Nautiyal said.

After this, both the hunters took positions from different directions and shot it dead, he said.

However, Nautiyal said that despite the leopard being killed, forest department personnel have been instructed to continue patrolling Akhodi village for the time being.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)