Leopard kills 13-year-old girl in Uttarakhand's New Tehri

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A 13-year-old girl was killed by a leopard in the Bhilangana range of Tehri forest division here on Saturday, officials said. According to officials, this is the third leopard attack in the area in the last four months. The incident took place hours after Divisional Forest Officer Puneet Tomar had visited the area.

At around 4.30 pm on Saturday, the girl, identified as Sakshi, came out of her house in Kot Maher village to play. The leopard, sitting in ambush in the bushes, pounced on her, they said. On hearing her screams, the girl's neighbours rushed to her rescue and made loud noises to scare the animal. The leopard dragged her for around 50 metres before escaping into the forest, officials said.

Kot Maher's Gram Pradhan Surekha Ghanta said the "man-eater" leopard had killed a nine-year-old girl in Bhaund village on July 22 and a three-year-old boy in Purwal village on September 29. In view of the incidents, the forest department has deployed two shooters in the area to kill the leopard, and eight cameras have been installed to track its activities. Cages have also been set up in the hopes of catching the leopard.

Vikram Singh Ghanta, a local villager, said people were furious over the killings and scared to venture out of their homes. According to officials, Sakshi, the third among four siblings, was a student of class nine. Her father works in a hotel in Russia.

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