The residents of Haridwar are living under a shadow of fear following frequent intrusions of leopards in the residential colonies. Situated on the banks of Ganga, the city is encircled by the forest falling under Rajaji Tiger Reserve. The boundaries of many residential colonies touch the Park boundary.
A number of incidents of leopards killing stray and pet dogs has surfaced over the past couple of months, leaving the residents scared. On Wednesday morning, a leopard stealthily entered the Mela Hospital premises located along the Hill by-pass Road and killed a pet dog, leaving its carcass behind, following which locals staged a protest at Haridwar forest division office and served an application to the office of the forest division.
The residents of the areas like Kharkhari, Bhimgoda, Haripurkalan, Brahmpuri, Hill Bypass Road, BHEl and the official residences of the employees working in district headquarters at Roshanabad say their residences being located close to the Rajaji Park have left them deeply scared. “We are really scared following wild animals prowling around the residential areas,” said one of them.
On Wednesday morning a leopard entered the house of an employee of Mela hospital in the hospital premises and mauled a pet dog in the house courtyard. Narrating the incident, Dinesh lakhera of Mela Hospital said, “We do not come out in the evening on account of the fear of the leopards stalking around. On Wednesday morning, the beast killed my dog. The carcass of the dog was found on the roof. We informed the forest officials, but nobody is serious about our problem. We staged a protest and served an application to the forest officials, demanding the situation being rightly addressed and our fear put to rest. We have also raised the matter before the chief medical officer of Haridwar.”
Notably, this is not the lone case of the big cats intruding in the residential areas. Earlier too, many such incidents happened where the beasts preyed on the stray and the tamed animals. A stray dog was killed in broad day light and dragged to Kharkhari just a few days ago. A resident of Kharkhari, Manoj Gupta told The Pioneer, “Many stray dogs have become the prey of the leopards in the recent past. We often see the leopard prowling around for prey in the forest close to residential colonies. Morning and evening walks are scary in Kharkhari and Hill By pass Road. We have informed the forest department but to no avail. No step has been taken to stop the big cats from getting into our houses in search of prey.”
last year, three leopard cubs had got trapped in a house in Judges Colony in Roshnabad. They were rescued after many hours by the forest department officials. A female leopard had entered an ashram located at a densely populated area of Kankhal sometime ago. The animal was trapped in a store room of the ashram and was later tranquilized after several hours. Similarly, such beastly appearance was witnessed by the jawans of PAC campus in Jawalapur last year. After some days a leopard was found dead in Sector-1 of BHEl township. A leopard had intruded in the canteen of the district headquarters and pounced on a man, leaving him with multiple injuries.
When asked, the forest officer of Haridwar Range of Rajaji Tiger Reserve, D P Uniyal said, “We have erected protective wall recently at our border line to stop the wild animals from getting into the residential areas. The Haridwar forest division must do something about it, especially in the light of the latest incident of a dog being mauled by a leopard in the Mela Hospital resident quarters”.
Mahesh Semwal, range officer of forest division, said, “ The height of the recently constructed protection wall is too low to stop leopards from jumping over. Elephants have stopped coming, but to stop the leopards, the height of the protection wall must be suitably raised. We have already suggested the same to the higher authorities.”