india

Updated: Apr 25, 2020 06:23 IST

Police in Assam’s Golaghat district have arrested four people for killing a leopard and allegedly eating its meat, officials said on Friday.

It is not the only case of leopard killing in the state. Three other leopards, a wild cat and an elephant have died during the ongoing lockdown to stop the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

“The leopard was killed on April 17 and those who killed it had a made a video of it. When we saw the video on April 18 on social platforms, we recovered the carcass on April 18,” Bhaskar Deka, Golaghat’s divisional forest officer, said.

The hind legs of the animal had been chopped away and its skin, tail, claws and teeth were missing. The carcass was found buried in a forested area in Ahomgaon village.

Based on clues from the video clip, forest officials identified the accused and arrested them on Thursday. All the four—Junmon Gogoi, Raktim Gogoi, Thagiram Gogoi and Nitya Nand Saikia—are from the same village.

“One of the accused said some villagers consumed the leopard’s meat, but there is no documentary evidence of it. Leopards are a protected species listed under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act. We have lodged a case against the accused under Section 9 of the Act,” said Deka.

Two other leopards and a wild cat have been killed in Golaghat district this month.

“While we have found carcasses of two leopards and a wild cat, our department has rescued five other leopards that were trapped in cages set by the forest department and released them in the wild,” said Deka.

A female elephant was electrocuted in Kumrakata reserve forest on Monday after it touched a high-intensity electric wire passing through the forest.

On March 30, a leopard, which had entered a house in Na Gayan village in Jorhat district, was shot dead by a policeman in self-defence during a rescue attempt. The animal had injured two people before it was shot down.