Leopard enters residential area in Siliguri, triggers panic

Siliguri (West Bengal) [India], January 8 : A leopard entered a residential area in Siliguri early on Sunday which triggered panic among the people of the area.
The forest department team and the local police immediately reached the spot after getting the information and have been trying to find the leopard to rescue it.
A forest department official said that the department has put cages to catch leopards and a search operation is underway.
In recent times, this is not the first incident when a leopard has been found straying into residential places.
On Saturday, a leopard strayed the residential area of Uttar Pradesh's Aligarh district and was later rescued.
The leopard entered a house in Jawan village.
Shiv Pratap Singh, circle officer (CO) of Aligarh, Civil Lines, said, "There was panic after a leopard entered the residential area of Jawan village earlier today. Soon, curious onlookers gathered at the spot. As the villagers chased the big cat around, it ran into the house. As soon as the leopard entered the house, the villagers locked its main gate from outside."
"A family of three was trapped inside the house for nearly three hours with the leopard. On receiving information, a heavy police contingent and several teams from the forest department rushed to the spot and launched a rescue operation, managing to extract all family members safe from the house," Singh added.
Sunita, one of the members of the house the leopard broke into, said, "The leopard entered my house around 9.45 am and tried to attack me. But I ran to the kitchen and locked myself in. I was terrified. It damaged the lights, the inverter and a water pump in the locked room. It was here for three hours."
The CO further informed that there was no information on any injuries.
The leopard has been rescued by the forest department team from inside the house and taken back to the forest.