Leopard terror haunts

 leopard preyed on an eight-year-old boy at Bishalpur VDC-2 in Baitadi district on Sunday night.
The man-eater whisked away Dambar Soni, son of Parma Soni, from his house while he was sleeping. The leopard entered Soni’s room through the window and took away the boy while he was sleeping with his mother. Villagers found some body parts of the boy around 500 meters away from the house on Monday.

Leopards mauled two children to death and injured three women in Bishalpur and its vicinity at Talloswarad area in the district within the past two months. Local people said leopards enter the settlements mostly in the evenings and attack children and women. The man-eaters have terrorised locals in eight VDCs in the area for the past few years. Leopards killed 22 people in the area within the past one year. According to the villagers, there could be three or four man-eaters in the area. They said leopards used to attack children earlier, but now they target women.

“The villagers are in living terror. Leopards enter houses and attack people. One cannot even go to toilet alone,” said Jaya Dutta Bhatta of Bishalpur. “Neither fear-stricken children could go to school nor women can come out of houses alone.”  Villagers complained that the authorities concerned always ignored their plight despite repeated requests. The local administration had sent a joint team of Nepal Army, Nepal Police, Armed Police Force, forest employees and experts from Chitwan National Park to the area last year to catch the man-eaters, but to no avail.