Mysuru: Nagarahole RFO enters 100-ft dry well to search and rescue leopard

MYSURU: A range forest officer locked himself in a cage and entered a 100-ft dry well to check whether a leopard has fallen in HD Kote, Mysuru on Saturday. However, the big cat was not there.
Antharasanthe RFO Siddaraju is the daredevil officer who entered the deep dry well in Karapura village to rescue the big cat.

Nagarahole Tiger Reserve director D Mahesh Kumar told TOI that they received complaints from the villagers stating that a leopard had fallen into the well and they have seen it.
“Based on the complaint, we tried to trace the leopard by lowering a camera along with a torch using rope inside the well. We could not see the cat and even there wasn’t any sound of the animal. As the villagers were sure of leopard inside the well, RFO Siddaraju decided to enter to search and rescue the animal,” he said.
A metal cage was brought to the spot by the forest staff and RFO Siddaraju got inside with a torch and a mobile phone.
Mahesh said that the cage was lowered inside the deep well using ropes. “RFO Siddaraju searched for the leopard but could not find anything. He was updating the development over mobile phone. But as there was nothing, he was pulled up back,” he said.
Mahesh said that there are three such dry wells in the village which were abandoned. There has been a demand from the villagers from past few years to the Gram Panchayat to close the well with metal mesh so that no human and animal fall inside.
“The well where the searching was conducted has a parapet wall. The circumference of the well is six feet,” he said.
Forest staffers returned to the office around 8 pm but again they were summoned after villagers sighted the big cat.