Mumbai: More than 20 hours after it strayed into an international school at Mulund in north-east Mumbai, a full-grown leopard was trapped by forest officials early yesterday.
The wild cat had sneaked into the NES International School located adjacent to the boundary of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) at 8am on Saturday. After prowling around the school premises for a while, it sought out the basement of the school. Since the school is closed for summer vacations, there was no cause for concern.
Having been alerted by the school management, forest officials from the SGNP arrived at the school at 10.30am. Their initial plan was to track down the leopard and immobilise it using tranquilliser guns when it holed up in the basement.
The gardener of the school spotted the big cat enter the basement and locked the door. Playing the waiting game, the forest rangers set up a trap with a lavish quantity of chicken as bait. In their bid to draw the animal out of the basement, the forest officials burst crackers at around 8.30pm on Saturday. The leopard did come out of the basement, but avoided the trap.
Long wait
It was around 4.30am yesterday that the leopard finally walked into the cage.
The wildlife park officials took the trapped leopard to the neighbouring sanctuary, where it was freed into the jungle. They said the leopard might have strayed into the school searching for food. Incidentally, the NES International School is located just 300 metres away from the boundary of the national park. There have been many instances in the past when wild animals from the SGNP strayed into nearby housing complexes, the Film City, the Aarey Milk Colony, Dahisar, Borivli, Kandivli, Malad, Goregaon in the western suburbs, Mulund and Bhandup on the north-eastern side, and also onto the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology at Powai.
