BAHRAICH: Even as a national campaign is underway to save India's tiger population, farmers on Sunday clubbed to death two one-year-old leopard cubs in an apparent revenge attack after the mother leopard attacked a woman in a tiger reserve.
The incident happened in the Katarniaghat wildlife reserve in Bahraich district barely 24 hours after the woman was mauled. According to Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) wildlife R K Singh, the cubs were killed, when a large number of local farmers surrounded them after a farmer's wife was attacked by the mother leopard, while the woman was watering her fields'.
He said, "The mother leopard managed to leap to safety, but the one-year-old cubs were cornered and beaten to death."
Geeta (25), the woman attacked by the leopard, was admitted to a Bahraich hospital and is stated to be out of danger. Her husband Surendra Singh, an ex-serviceman, who was with her at the time of the attack, said, "The leopard would have killed my wife had the farmers not immediately rushed to her help."
Katarniaghat along the Indo-Nepal border, is an extended part of Uttar Pradesh's Dudhwa National Park. It has an an estimated population of 30 leopards and about 40 tigers.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Villagers-beat-2-cubs-to-death/articleshow/7702782.cms
