NASHIK: It was the crack of dawn on Tuesday and Manisha Barde , still sleepy, returned to her hut after answering the call of nature. Snuggling between her two small kids, asleep under the mosquito net, was her pet cat. Or so she thought.

Moments later, it wriggled in slumber and Manisha, now wide eyed, grasped the enormity of the situation: while she was away, the door kept unlocked as usual, a leopard cub had sneaked into the hut—one of the handful dotting the tribal village of Dhamangaon on the woody foothills in Igatpuri taluka.

The cub then made its way into the mosquito net and, probably comforted by the warmth of the bed, fell asleep. Manisha somehow kept her calm. She stealthily removed her children, who didn’t have a scratch on their bodies, and rushed out of the hut to wake up the villagers.

The 3-month-old cub did not harm the two kids of a Nashik village

Foresters used vegetable tray to trap cub

Forest officials, who were promptly alerted, used a vegetable tray to trap the 3-month-old leopard cub. Forest circle officer Gorakshnath Jadhav later took it to the local office of the forest department.

Range forest officer of Igatpuri Ramesh Dhomse said, “The kids was still asleep when the cub entered the hut. Initially, she (Manisha) mistook it for their pet cat. We were informed of the incident at around 5am and rescued the cub by 6am. It did not harm anyone.”



In Video: Leopard cub enters hut, fell asleep beside 2 kids