BHOPAL: Leopard menace shrowds campuses of two premier IT services companies – Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) – in Madhya Pradesh’s financial capital Indore.
Teams of the state forest department armed with night vision camera traps and drone cameras have been pressed into action to track the Leopard and possibly two cubs in the campuses of the two IT services companies and an adjacent agricultural field in west Indore’s Super Corridor area.
According to DFO-Indore Mahendra Singh Solanki, “The Leopard was spotted entering the Infosys campus by morning walkers early on Tuesday, after which the IT services company’s security guards informed the local forest department staff at around 10.30 am.”
A team of forest department was pressed into action to track and rescue the Leopard, but despite tracking the Leopard’s pugmarks in the campus, the team’s efforts to track and rescue the spotted big cat didn’t deliver the desired results.
“On Wednesday morning, a farmer who owns an agricultural plot (adjacent to the two IT companies’ campuses) replete with standing wheat crop informed the forest department staff about spotting two Leopard cubs in his fields, after which our team started their rescue operations in that field. Though the cubs’ pugmarks were traced and identified, the two cubs couldn’t be tracked despite sustained efforts,” Solanki added.
Subsequent probe suggests that as a large part of the Infosys campus has big grass and bushes, it’s quite possible that the concerned Leopard would have found it an ideal habitat to give birth to the cubs.
The presence of pigs in the area in the two campuses vicinity might have further made the place a suitable habitat for the Leopard, sources in the rescue teams told this newspaper on Wednesday. “Our expert rescue teams are working on the matter on the ground round-the-clock and we hope to soon unite and rescue the Leopard and its cubs,” Solanki maintained.
Meanwhile, the IT services companies have issued safety advisories to its employees at the twin campuses. All those associates (staffers) who travel by two-wheelers, have been advised to leave the office premises before evening and also avoid the road between the two campuses.
The evening shift employees have particularly been asked to reach the offices early and avoid the road between the two campuses.