A leopard was rescued from Greater Noida’s Sadullapur village on Sunday, the police said. The animal was rescued by Forest Department officials and specialists from Meerut and Delhi zoo.
The police said the Station House Officer at Ecotech 3 received a call at 10 a.m., following which a team rushed to the spot.
Pappu Pradhan, the former chairman of a village near Sadullapur, said a group of men had come to his house after spotting the animal. “They asked me to call the police. They looked petrified,” he said.
Ecotech 3 police station SHO Anita Chauhan said a similar incident was reported two days ago in Bisrakh and another one last November.
“I immediately reached the spot with a team and saw over 200 people standing in front of a field, where the leopard was allegedly sighted. Eyewitnesses told us that it went into a farmhouse, which is located around 500 metres away from the spot,” said Ms. Chauhan.
She added one Fauzi had a narrow escape when the animal ran past him. “The leopard came out again after 20 minutes. By that time, the District Forest Officer [DFO] and other forest officials had reached the spot.”
DFO P. K. Shrivastava said they saw the leopard as it came out of the farmhouse. “After a while, it went back. I called the Chief Forest Conservator, who reached the spot with other officials,” said Mr. Shrivastava.
He added that it took him almost four hours to arrange equipment like a cage, safety net, forest vehicle, tranquilliser gun, etc., to begin the rescue operation.
The rescue operation began at 4.15 p.m., with five trained specialists from Delhi zoo and Wildlife SOS Meerut. At 5.30 p.m., the big cat was successfully caged by the rescuers.
The DFO said the leopard has been taken to a forest base camp in Surajpur and will be released in the Shivalik forest near Saharanpur early on Monday.
“The leopard is presumably 7 to 8 years old and is a male. It lives in Greater Noida’s Ganga Khadar region in Baghpat Hastinapur and Bulandshahr,” said Mr. Shrivastava.
To a question on how the animal had reached Greater Noida, he said leopards often get lost after following a prey for long.