Thanks to the patience shown by the Gujarat Forest Department, a leopard that is believed to have killed three people in Dahod and several cattle escaped the same fate as tigress Avni of Maharashtra. The state forest department after a massive hunt of over a fortnight that saw over 150 personnel being pressed into service to track the wild cat managed to capture the leopard on Thursday. "We have captured two leopards one on Thursday in Kotambi village and one today near Dhanpur. The one that was captured on Thursday had a broken canine and we believe it is the one responsible for the deaths. We are analysing the pugmarks for the same," said chief conservator of forest, Vadodara circle, SK Srivastava. It should be noted that the forest department had sought and had been granted permission to shoot the wildcat by the Gujarat government. "Shooting it was the last option that we were going to exercise. Our efforts were directed towards trapping it," said Srivastava It should be noted that the leopard had so far killed three people including two children between November 21 to 26 and injured a woman in Baria Forest division of Dahod district The district had seen a similar incident some 15 years ago where a leopard had attacked and killed over eight people and had eventually been gunned down. Earlier, the forest department had said that pugmarks had shown that the leopard had most likely crossed into Madhya Pradesh. The forest staff had been keeping an eye on the forest range of Dhanpur to capture the leopard. The department had earlier after being unable to trap the leopard with an animal bait had also ensured that three of its officers were in one of the cages that were to trap the animal. In all nine cages were spread around various places in the range to capture the animal. CAT IN THE BAG

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