Leopard kills 9-year-old girl in Bahraich; 2nd fatality in fortnight

Pilibhit: A nine-year-old girl was killed after a leopard attacked her while she was asleep on the veranda of her house in Tapra Bazar village under Sujauli police station limits in Bahraich district around 10.30pm on Monday. The incident was the second big cat-related death in the district within a fortnight.Hearing Akanksha’s screams, her parents rushed out but could not find her. After her father, Om Prakash, raised an alarm, villagers launched a search and found her nearly one-and-a-half hours later in a sugarcane field about 200 metres from the house near Sutia Nala. She was still breathing when her father rushed her to a nearby medical facility, where doctors declared her dead on arrival. She had sustained deep injuries to her face and neck, including a punctured trachea.The attack took place around 1km from Sujauli forest range of Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary. Police and forest officials reached the spot after receiving information, and the body was sent for postmortem.Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary DFO Apoorv Dixit said the leopard may have been staying near the drain due to easy access to water in the heat. “Leopards often move to forest fringe areas and water sources to avoid encounters with tigers,” he said.Dixit said awareness programmes had been held in nearby villages and patrolling teams deployed. Two more teams of trained forest personnel, along with two cages and six camera traps, were pressed into service to monitor and capture the leopard.Earlier, a woman was killed by a tiger in Puraina village on May 25, while a leopardess injured three people in Joginia village on May 24 before being rescued by forest officials from a room in a village house.