Kolhapur: A leopard entered the Hotel Woodland, located in the middle of the bustling elite in the Tarabai Park area. This incident took occurred around 11:30 pm on Tuesday. It attacked the police, forest officials and the hotel garden staff. The crowd of onlookers and the screams of the leopard scattered and entered the closed drainage tank in the premises of ‘Mahavitaran’ through an open door.
After three hours of suspense, the forest department managed to capture the leopard by injecting it with a ‘tranquilizer’ gun. It has been kept under observation at the wildlife treatment center. However, while controlling the crowd of onlookers, the police came across a problem. The police resorted to lathicharge as the operation to capture the leopard was obstructed. Shahupuri Police Constable Krishna Balwant Patil, garden employee Tukaram Sidhu Khondal and forest employee Omkar Katkar were injured in the leopard attack. Khondal has been injured the most.
A leopard hiding in a drainage chamber on the ‘Mahavitaran’ office premises was captured by staff using plywood and a net. When the leopard lunged at the net, they restrained it. Dr. Santosh Walvekar, a forest department medical officer, tranquilized the animal with a phulene injection, initially administered via gun to reduce aggression, followed by a second injection to the leg with a syringe. The unconscious leopard was then caged and transported to the wildlife department’s treatment center in Chikhli.The captured leopard, a fully grown, four-year-old male, displayed considerable strength and agility during the attack, easily clearing 10 to 15-foot barriers.