Villagers brutally kill leopard in UP's Ghazipur district

VARANASI: An angry mob of villagers brutally killed a leopard in a wheat field near Susundi village under the limits of Nonahara police station in Ghazipur district on Sunday. Three villagers also suffered injuries when the beast attacked them in the bid to escape.
Divisional forest officer Ghazipur Girish Chandra Tripathi said that as the villagers overlooked instructions of officials of forest department and police to leave the area, where leopard was hidden, and killed it brutally a case was registered against them under section 9/51 wildlife protection act with police.The carcass of leopard was sent for postmortem, he added.
Susundi native became aware about the arrival of leopard in their village when it tried to attack a local and he raised an alarm. After it hundreds of villagers surrounded the wheat field, where the leopard entered and hid itself. On getting information Nonahara police also reached there.
Tripathi said that he was alerted by the district magistrate office at 10 am and after rushing the forest ranger Sadar and talking to circle officer Kasimabad he also reached the spot. He said that he and police officials made repeated appeal to the villagers with loudhailers to quit the area in order to enable forest officials in catching the leopard.
“However, the mob of villagers started shouting after surrounding the field due to which the beast made bid to escape. In the same bid it attacked the mob due to which three villagers suffered injuries. Later, the villagers beat the leopard brutally with sticks killing him on the spot”, said Tripathi.