NASHIK: A three-year-old male leopard, which killed three children in separate incidents in three villages of rural Dhule over the past week, was captured by the forest department on Monday.A team of forest officials tranquilised the big cat after it was spotted in Moghan village, some 15 km from Dhule city, at 5am on Monday.The leopard had killed three minors in Nandale, Horpada and Moghan villages of Dhule rural.In the first attack, an eight-month-old girl was killed on the spot in Nandale village, around 27 km from Dhule city, on October 23. The next day, on October 24, the leopard pounced on a 5-year-old boy and killed him on the spot in Horpada village. In the third incident, that took place on October 26, a 10-year-old boy was seriously injured. He died four days while undergoing treatment in the Dhule-based Government Medical College and Hospital.Three leopard attacks on children in a week had sparked panic among people living in the villages.The forest department had deployed 10 five-member teams of forest officials to track down the leopard. Moreover, it had also installed 20 trap cameras and five cages at various locations. The wildlife department of Nagpur had permitted Dhules forest department to tranquilise and capture the big cat.It took forest teams almost eight days to capture the leopard. The leopard had killed a sheep in Moghan village on Monday morning. A team of forest officials that was tracking the animal, tranquilised and captured it.Speaking to TOI, Nitin Singh, the deputy conservator of forest, said they captured the animal and conducted its medical examination. The leopard is medically fit.According to their analysis, the same leopard had attacked the three children. We had found pugmarks of the same big cat at the three villages where minors were attacked, said Singh.We have also sent the saliva and blood samples of the leopard to the two labs, in Hyderabad and Nagpur, to confirm if this leopard had killed the three minors, said Singh.

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