COIMBATORE: Two days after a leopard killed a four-year-old girl at the Pachamalai Estate in Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR) in Valparai, the forest department on Sunday placed a cage to trap the big cat.
A camouflaged cage has been placed near the spot where Roshini Kumari's body was found, 700 metre from her house. The choice of the spot was based on the belief that the leopard would return. Sources in the forest department said that one more cage will be placed if the animal remains elusive.
The leopard took away Roshini from the premises of her house on Friday at 6:30 pm. The body was found by the forest department staff with the help of the sniffer dog Bairava at 11:30 am on Saturday.
Officials are on high alert to prevent similar incidents. Forest department staff asked residents in the labourers' residential quarters not to leave goats and hens unattended.
"We have been advising people to avoid walking with their children in the dark along the bushes. We have been conducting awareness programmes for workers by interacting with them at their workplace and informing them about the dos and don'ts," said the official.
On Sunday, Pollachi MP K Eswarasamy handed over a cheque of `9.5 lakh to the deceased girl's parents, Manoj Munda and Monika Devi, at their house in the presence of Valparai Forest Range Officer Suresh Krishnan and Manomboly Forest Range Officer K Giritharan.
The official said they are monitoring the movement of the big cat using 20 camera traps that were fixed around the place where the girl's body was recovered.
"We will know whether the animal is injured or not by checking the camera traps on Monday or Tuesday," the official added.