Udaipur : In yet another spine chilling incident, a 36year-old woman was mauled to death by a leopard at Kewde-ki-Naal area under Savina police station limits, some 20 kilometers from Udaipur city on Thursday evening. The woman had gone to the forest to cut grass around 5 pm when the beast mauled and dragged her several meters into dense bushes. The residents were infuriated after the dead body was found one and a half hours later. There were wounds on the neck and other parts of the body. Villagers feared the leopard to have turned into a man-eater. They gathered in large number and blocked the Udaipur-Salumber-Banswara road for some time.
The victim identified as Bhanvari Bai wife of Ramesh Meena was a resident of Eklingpura of Ouda panchayat in Kewda forest area. The body was recovered by local forest staff and sent to the district hospital for a post-mortem examination. Officials of forest department, teams from Savina and Zawar mines police stations and tehsildar rushed to the spot on getting information. The officials tried to pacify the villagers and assured to trap the wild cat soon. People complained that earlier too leopard sightings were reported from the area, however, the forest officials did not take them seriously.
Deputy Conservator of Forest Ajay Chittora, confirmed the incident and said “Our team is on the spot. We will deploy a cage and will take necessary steps to catch the leopard. After postmortem report only, more facts would be known”. According to sources, it is common for the locals to take goats to the forest for grazing or to cut grass or wood for kitchen fire.