NASHIK: In the second such incident in the area in the last five days, a six-year-old girl died after being mauled by a leopard in the district's Niphad taluka even as another big cat was trapped in Dindora taluka.
According to police, Dipali Balkrishna Kothe was attacked last evening by the leopard when she had stepped outside her house at Karanjgaon-Shingave Shivar in Niphad taluka to wash her hands.
Saykheda police station in-charge VM Avhad said that the leopard, which had been apparently hiding in a nearby sugarcane field, attacked her and dragged her for some distance.
Seeing the leopard dragging away the girl, her grandmother cried for help following which locals rushed to her rescue.
The locals rushed the girl, who sustained serious injuries in the leopard attack, to the Chandori rural hospital and later shifted her to Nashik Civil Hospital, where she died last night, Avhad said.
On August 8, a 10-year-old-boy was killed in an attack by a leopard in Chapadgaon area of the taluka.
Deputy conservator of forests RM Ramanujam said they have set up traps for catching the big cat at Karanjgaon, Shingave, Chapadagaon and Manjargaon.
Adequate financial assistance will be provided to the kin of the deceased, he added.
Meanwhile, a leopardess, which was apparently roaming the area in search of its cubs, was trapped in a cage at Karanjavan in Dindori taluka of the district yesterday, a forest official said.
The leopardess had recently given birth to two cubs in an agricultural field in Karanjavan, he added.