Photograph by BhagyaMani
A leopard on the loose in the northern Indian town of Meerut has sparked mass panic, with large numbers of police and wildlife experts reportedly deployed to tranquillise and capture the animal.
The big cat was first spotted in the town on Saturday afternoon when it attacked a warehouse worker, and then managed to enter a hospital on Sunday, where staff were able to lock it in a room, but it managed to escape before a wildlife team arrived on the scene.
Officials have closed schools and colleges in the town as a safety precaution, with district magistrate Pankaj Yadav telling BBC Hindi that they were still “yet to locate the leopard”.
As more animal habitat land is absorbed into towns or utilised by farmers, leopards and other big cats such as Asiatic lions and Bengal tigers have strayed more often into populated areas
Tigers and other big cats have been known to stray into populated areas and conservationists have warned that such confrontations may increase as humans encroach on animal habitats.
