An 11-year-old girl was killed by a leopard in Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh district on Thursday evening, said forest officials.
This is the second death due to a leopard attack to be reported from the district in the past three days and third in the past two weeks.
“The girl was working near her house, collecting fodder when the leopard attacked her. The incident happened in Chaana village which is around 16 km from the district headquarters. Some locals tried to save the girl when they heard her screams but they failed,” said Vinay Bhargav, divisional forest officer (DFO) Pithoragarh.
On Tuesday, a 40-year-old man was killed by a leopard in Pithoragarh forest range.
Following the incident, the district forest officials have written to the chief wildlife warden seeking permission to declare this leopard as a ‘man-eater’.
There has been a spate of leopard attacks in Uttarakahnd this year.
Last Saturday, a 7-year-old girl was mauled to death by a leopard when she was playing near her house in Almora district. On August 3, an 8-year-old girl was killed in a leopard attack in Tehri forest division when she was walking down a path from her house to another.
On July 11, a 60-year-old woman from Nainital district was killed y a leopard when she went to the forest to collect fodder. In the same month, an 18-month-old boy was killed by a leopard in Almora. On June 23, a woman who went to the forest to cut grass in Kathgodam area was killed by a leopard. In the same month, a teenage girl, who was listening to music on her headphones, was attacked and mauled to death by a leopard in Ramnagar area of Nainital district.
