BHOPAL: A 13-year-old boy bravely fought against a leopard by holding the predator by its neck, pushing it away to save his life in the buffer area of Satpura Tiger Reserve (STR) in Madhya Pradesh’s Narmadapuram district.
The incident happened on Saturday evening in STR’s Pipariya buffer area’s Kursi Khapa village.
“Satyam went near a well outside his house to get a cot when a leopard attacked him. With courage and bravery, the boy, while raising cries for help, managed to catch the leopard by the neck, hit and push it away,” forest beat guard Barvendra Shah Uike said on Sunday.
The boy suffered multiple injuries in hand as the leopard attacked him with its claws. “My son has suffered multiple injuries in the abdomen, leg, hand and fingers. But even before we rushed to save him, he had dealt bravely with the leopard,” Satyam’s father, Mahendra Singh Thakur, said.
According to official sources, the brave boy has received the necessary medical treatment at the Pipariya Hospital, besides the immediate financial assistance from the authorities.
As per the doctors, he is out of danger now.
While Satyam is perhaps the youngest to have bravely dealt with a leopard attack in the state, a few other villagers have courageously fought the wild animals in other parts of the state, too.
In September 2025, a 65-year-old woman, Surajiya Bai Jatav, when attacked by a jackal, bravely fought the wild animal for around 30 minutes.
Using her frail hands, the elderly woman, showing exemplary courage, first caught hold of the jackal’s jaws with both hands and twisted them in different directions.
As the wild animal weakened in the fight, profusely bleeding Surajiya Bai managed to reportedly sit over the jackal.
Realising that with heavily bleeding bite wounds, she might not be able to battle with the animal anymore, she tore a part of her saree and formed a noose, which she fastened around the animal’s neck, strangling the jackal to death.
In April 2026, a wolf that had killed two goats and left two youths injured was dealt with bravery by a young villager, Sandeep Gormade, in Barwani district.
Gormade caught hold of the wolf, overpowered the wild animal and later pinned it down. Despite being bitten by the wolf, Sandeep held on tightly to the wild animal and managed to ensure that it remained pinned down.
