NUAPADA: Panic gripped residents of Kutrengapada within Dharambandha police limits here after a cow was reportedly killed by a leopard near the village on Sunday.
In the morning, a villager, Agin Majhi, was taking his cattle for grazing when an unidentified big cat attacked the herd and dragged a cow towards the forest. Though some villagers saw the big cat and tried to chase it with weapons, the animal fled into the dense forest.
A few hours later, a search party went into the forest and found the cow’s carcass. Subsequently, villagers informed the Forest department. Though villagers claimed it to be a tiger, forest officials identified the pug and nail marks on the cow’s carcass to be that of a leopard.
DFO Susil Tripathy said, “We are yet to trace the big cat. Forest personnel have left the cow’s carcass at the spot. We have also installed trap cameras and deployed our squad there to see if the leopard comes back to feed on the carcass in the night.”