-- Samir Umarye BICHOLIM JAN 25: A one and half year old leopard was today trapped in a cage at Van Maulinguem much to the relief of the people from the area.
According to the information a leopard was today trapped in the cage near the house of Dheeraj Bhide at Van- Maulinguem. The forest department had laid trap to catch the wild cat on December 29 when it strayed into the house of Bhide while chasing a cat. Luckily the family escaped as the leopard ran sliped on the tiles and ran away. Today the leopard was caught at around 4 am. The wild cat was injured on the neck as it was recently trapped in a cable which most of the people use to catch rabbits. The Animal Rescue Squad chief, Amrut Singh along with Shailesh Jadhav, Dinesh Mandrekar immediately went to the spot and later called the forest officials. "The leopard was caught in a trap some three to four days back laid by a poacher and was seriously injured" ARS chief, Amrut Singh told "we believe that this is the same cat which had earlier injured a calf in the area." The Range forest officer, Deepak Betkiakar; Round Forester, Budhaji Naik, Bhikaji Desai, Subhash Aarondekar, Abhijeet Verekar and Tushar Verekar came to the spot and at about 8 am took the leopard in their custody.
