Gerard Mendis/Wikimedia/PexelsA five-year-old boy was eaten alive by a leopard in an Indian village while he was playing outside his home with his four-year-old friend.
The half-eaten body of Chetan, five, was found in a sugarcane field 328 yards from Prempuri village, Uttar Pradesh, while his friend Nishu, four, was was critically injured.
It’s unknown if the attack happened on Monday or Tuesday, but five-year-old Chetan’s body is thought to have been discovered yesterday, Tuesday, December 17, in a sugarcane field just a few hundred metres away from the village he was playing in.
Parts of the child’s back, hands and face were missing, while his hands had reportedly been separated from the body. The other child, Nishu, was rushed to hospital with severe injuries to his neck.
PexelsThis is the third leopard attack to happen in India in two days. Authorities have said they have set up cages to trap the leopards, while also launching a probe into the killing following the incidents.
According to reports, there was a similar attack on Sunday, December 15, where a five-year-old named Rohan was taken by a leopard. Fortunately, his family came to his rescue and the leopard dropped the child and fled. He sustained injuries on his neck and is currently recuperating in hospital.
Following the death of Chetan, the leopard is yet to be declared a man eater, until the probe is finished.
Najibabad Divisional Forest Officer Manoj Shukla told Times Now News:
It was the first time that a leopard ate a kid’s body. We cannot declare it a man eater yet. The attacks were carried out in different areas. We are not sure if the same leopard is attacking the villagers. We have alerted our staff and have put cages in different areas.
PexelsAccording to villagers, leopards have been stalking sugarcane farms of late in search of food. Bijnor is the second largest sugarcane cultivator in the state after Lakhimpur Kheri, and with the depletion of forest cover, incidents of man-animal conflict have been on the rise.
Leopards usually feed on animals like dogs, goats, rabbits, wild boars, nilgai calves and jackals, which are easy to prey on and are available in sugarcane fields. However, more recently leopards have started targeting children. There has also been an increase in the leopard population in the area. More than a dozen cubs were spotted by the forest officials in May this year.
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Niamh Shackleton is a pint sized person and journalist at UNILAD. After studying Multimedia Journalism at the University of Salford, she did a year at Caters News Agency as a features writer in Birmingham before deciding that Manchester is (arguably) one of the best places in the world, and therefore moved back up north. She’s also UNILAD’s unofficial crazy animal lady.