UDAIPUR: A leopard attacked three women collecting wood from a hill near national highway 58E in Jhadol area of Udaipur district on Sunday morning and dragged one of them away. When a search team was dispatched to find the woman, it discovered her body with the torso and head separated.
Enraged villagers placed the woman’s body on the Udaipur-Jhadol-Ahmedabad highway and blocked traffic.They demanded compensation of Rs 51 lakh and immediate killing of the leopard.
Teams from three police stations were sent to the protest site to contain the mob. After negotiations led by Jhadol SDM Mani Lal and DFO Mukesh Saini, an agreement was finally reached in the evening. The settlement included a compensation package of Rs 10 lakh and assurance of employment to two family members as labourers in the forest department‘s nursery.
National Highway 58E, which remained blocked for six hours, was reopened and vehicular movement was restored in the evening, said Ramniwas, in charge of Jhadol police station.
The victim was identified as Mirabai, 40. Despite efforts of the two other women accompanying her to scare away the leopard, the beast grabbed Mirabai by the neck and dragged her deep into the forest. The search party discovered Mirabai’s body more than one kilometre inside the forest on the other side of the hill.
The forest department also began a search for the leopard by employing drones, but the efforts yielded no success.
