An unarmed woman single-handedly fended off an attack by a leopard in a tea garden in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district on Tuesday.
The woman, identified as Leela Oraon, fought with the leopard with her bare hands after the animal pounced on her when she was working in Bhatkhawa Tea Garden. The big cat fled after around 10 minutes.
Sources in the tea garden said that other workers took the injured woman to Lilabari Grameen Hospital.
"The woman is undergoing treatment. She is better now. We salute her courage," said Dr Sandipan Sarkar who treated her at the hospital.
This is not the first case of animal-human conflict involving leopards in the Jalpaiguri district of the northern part of West Bengal. Earlier in January, two leopards and five people were injured after a car hit the big cats in the district, a senior forest official said on Saturday.
The incident took place on NH 31C near Gendrapara tea estate in Banarhat area on January 1, Chief Wildlife Warden V K Yadav had said. While one of the leopards had been rescued, the other had slipped into nearby tea-bushes.
In yet another incident, an adult leopard met a tragic end after it was viciously beaten to death by villagers near Siliguri in North Bengal. The incident occurred in December near Phansidewa on the outskirts Siliguri.
(With inputs from PTI)