Bengaluru: When thirty-year-old Sreenivasan got down from his vehicle to attend nature’s call on the roadside, he did not have a clue that a leopard was lying behind the bushes, stalking him.
Sreenivasan was killed and dragged away by the leopard even before he could shout for help. The incident occurred during the wee hours of Thursday, on Highway No. 209 near Dimbam, on the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border.
When he did not return for a long time, the driver emerged and went around looking for him. Hearing the driver’s vo-ice, the leopard moved away, leaving behind Sreenivasan’s mangled body.
The driver saw the gory scene, ran back to his vehicle and drove to Satyamangala.
The deceased was a resident of Lokkanaha-lli, in Kollegal Taluk. He was employed as a loader in a transport company.
Earlier this year, two persons were killed by a leopard in the same area.
Raj Kumar, deputy conservator of forests in Satyamangala, said, “This particular stretch of the highway is frequented by three leopards, one of which w-as captured after the last incident. We are once again putting up camera traps in the area to monitor leopard mo-vement.”
The local conservationists claim that the vehicles which transport poultry through this forest are responsible for the movement of leopards along the highway in Dimbam.
