The Thane territorial division of the forest department captured a leopardess in the Aarey forest on Wednesday.
A leopardess has reportedly carried out nine attacks on people in the forests of Aarey colony in a span of 50 days. The forest department had captured three female leopards earlier, but they released two of them as their rosette patterns did not match with the one carrying out the attacks.
Girija Desai, the assistant conservator of forests of the Thane territorial range, told the Indian Express, “There have been 11 attacks on human in a span of three months. The leopardess we captured on Wednesday evening may well be the one which was carrying out the attacks. We will take her to our rescue centre and match the rosette patterns with the images in our database. After that, we can confirm on Thursday if this leopard is the one which was attacking humans.”
The attacks had deeply traumatised the people of Aarey who also tried to reach out to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray for his help.
Shiv Sena leader Ajay Pradhan said, “This leopard was trapped at 745 pm. Local residents are saying this was the animal which was attacking people.”