Woman, 65, killed in leopard attack in Palghar; villagers threaten protest

A 65-year-old woman was killed in a leopard attack in Palghar district of Maharashtra, police said on Monday. Villagers are angry and have said they will protest if the leopard is not caught soon.

The incident took place on Sunday evening at Mategaon, which falls under the Dahanu forest division.

Tushar Pachpute, assistant police inspector at Wangaon, said the deceased was Tulsi Rama Savar. She was a resident of Sarshi village in Vikramgad taluka and worked as a farm labourer. The leopard suddenly pounced on her and seized her by the neck. According to Pachpute, she died on the spot.

People nearby ran to the spot on hearing the noise. By then it was dark, and the animal used the cover to flee into the nearby forest.

The body was sent to a government hospital for a post-mortem. The police officer said a case of accidental death has been registered.

Angry villagers and farmers have warned that if camera traps and cages are not set up immediately to catch the leopard, they will march to the district collectorate. They are demanding that steps be taken at the earliest to prevent such attacks and make the area safe.

This is not the first such incident in Palghar district this month. In early October, a 52-year-old woman died in what was described as an alleged leopard attack. It was the first death in human-leopard conflict in the area in about eight years.

That woman was Pangli Govind Kolha. She lived in Bhoglepada No. 2 near Navali village, in a house on the edge of the forest. She was last seen on the evening of October 8. She is believed to have gone into the nearby forest in the early hours of October 9, when the attack happened.

Her body was found in a wooded section of reserve forest survey number Lo/9 of Navali village, in the Wevur beat. Teams of the forest department and police investigated together. The post-mortem on October 11 confirmed that she died in an attack by a wild animal.

The incident surprised both villagers and forest officials, as leopard sightings around Navali are extremely rare and there was no earlier record of human-leopard conflict there. Big cats are sighted comparatively more often in the Boisar and Dahisar ranges of Palghar district, but Navali had remained largely quiet until now.