A newly-married woman from a village in Padul Syun Patti in Pauri Tehsil is suspected to have been carried away by a leopard on Monday night. The 21-year-old woman is reported to have been taken by the big cat when she came out of her house to answer nature’s call.
Rashmi, daughter of Mangat Das, was married a month ago and she had come to her paternal village two days back. Forest department and revenue department officials including the sub-divisional magistrate Pl Shah reached the site after being informed about the incident. The body of the woman has not been recovered. Some distance from the house, torn clothes, her mangalsutra and some drops of blood were found giving rise to the doubt that she was killed by a leopard.
Divisional Forest Officer Raj Mani Pandey told The Pioneer that the department staff is searching for the body but has not found it so far. The shreds of clothes found near the site don’t seem to have been torn by a leopard and there are no pug marks of the big cat on the site. Whether she was killed by a leopard would be ascertained on recovery of the body, he stressed. On the other hand the SDM said that her mobile phone had been found by the revenue police.
Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports stated that she had travelled to Satpuli on a taxi on Tuesday morning.