Nashik: A three-year-old girl was killed in a leopard attack while playing in a farm at Parmori village in Dindori taluka, where her parents were working on Thursday.The leopard suddenly pounced on Gayatri Gangurde and dragged her away to a nearby sugar cane farm. Her parents, Geeta and Prakash, raised an alarm, following which the villagers chased the big cat. Later, they found the girl’s blood-soaked body inside the farm. The forest department has confirmed the incident.Leopards have been spotted quite frequently in the village and the forest department had managed to trap three leopards in the area within the last one month.Last September, a leopard had killed a three-year-old boy, Sarthak Dighe, in a similar manner, creating chaos among the villagers. Gayatri was attacked 3-4 km away from that location.Accusing the forest department of not doing enough to tackle the problem, irate villagers refused to take Gangurde’s body unless the forest department officials reached the spot.The local police rushed to the spot and after they were able to convince the villagers to take the body, which has been sent to the hospital for the post-mortem before the bereaved family performs the last rites.“I got a call about the incident and immediately rushed to the spot. The leopard took her to a nearby sugar cane farm and had bitten her a lot, tearing a lot of flesh. She died on the spot. People gathered and called the forest department but they did not come because the villagers had become very aggressive and had attacked them and damaged their vehicles when a similar incident had happened last year. The police arrived on the spot. The post-mortem is being done,” said Dnyaneshwar Tidke, a villager.He said that the other villagers were very agitated.Range forest officer of Dindori, Ganesh Gangurde said, “Last time our staff reached in half an hour but people damaged our vehicles and manhandled our staff. Police reached the spot this time and told us that the people are aggressive and so there is no need to come. Our staff will go on Friday morning and do the Panchanama.”Forest officials said that they have set up 22 cameras in and around the village to capture the movements of the big cats in the village and then trap them. This area has plenty of sugar cane farms and water, due to which many leopards are spotted here.

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