AHMEDABAD: The leopard which had sneaked into the secretariat in Gandhinagar may have entered the state capital from the ravines of the Sabarmati river , officials say. This is not the first time that a leopard has been found in Gandhinagar or on its outskirts.This is the third such incident in a decade. Officials said even on the earlier occasions, leopards had entered the state capital through the Sabarmati river. Leopards slip into Gandhinagar from Sabarkantha district , which has a sizeable leopard population. There are 70-odd leopards in the district.A K Saxsena, the principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife), said: “We are going to analyze all the routes from where it could have come to gate number 7 of the secretariat.” Saxsena went on to say: “We strongly feel that the leopard came from the ravines of the Sabarmati river. We are going to determine if the leopard was spotted along the route to Gandhinagar.”Gate number 7 lies towards sector 17 and 22. There are no green patches that could have drawn the leopard. The possibility of the leopard jumping the sachivalaya boundary cannot be ruled out.In 2016, a leopard was spotted on the Torrent Power campus in Bhatt area on the outskirts of Gandhinagar. In February 2009, a leopard was trapped in the ravines in the Sabarmati after a long operation. Former principal chief conservator of forests C N Pandey said: “I was the director of the Gujarat Ecology and Education Research Foundation when the leopard was trapped in 2009. While we were putting on a microchip, we realized that a microchip had already been installed on the leopard.” The old microchip was scanned. “We were shocked because data revealed that the leopard had been rescued from Junagadh and had been released in the Gir forest,” Pandey said.Another senior officer said that leopard traces are common in Gandhinagar. In the past, traces have been found in Indroda or nearby areas. In all these cases, leopards’ presence was surmised to be along the Sabarmati river.

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