Forest Department rescue teams tranquilised and captured an adult leopard in Karnataka’s Tumakuru district early Wednesday morning after the predator slipped inside a village residence and hid beneath a bedroom cot.
Nobody died. But the close shave shattered weeks of frayed nerves across Kunigal taluk, where big cats have stalked human settlements with increasing frequency.
The animal barged into the house of Chikkamariyappa and his wife, Narasamma, around 9:00 PM on Tuesday in Bandigowdanapalya village, situated near Huliyurdurga. The couple sat watching television in their living room. Without warning, the carnivore prowled through the open doorway. Panicked, Narasamma bolted toward the exterior threshold, slipped out into the courtyard, and slammed the heavy front door shut behind her—trapping the feline alone inside the residence before raising an immediate alarm.
Before breaching the home, the big cat had prowled through the outer perimeter of the settlement in search of prey. It struck a domestic livestock pen first, pouncing on a young baby goat tied outside a neighbouring home and carrying the carcass away into the brush. Stalking further between narrow village lanes, it found an unbolted doorway at Chikkamariyappa's home.
Villagers had spotted the animal circling the settlement perimeter for nearly a month. Local livestock keepers had repeatedly flagged evening sightings across farm borders, warning that forest corridors along Kunigal taluk were narrowing. Tuesday night proved their worst fears right.
Within 45 minutes of Narasamma securing the latch, forest officials and local police cordoned off the perimeter to prevent agitated crowds from provoking the animal. Peering through window grilles, wildlife trackers spotted the leopard wedged tightly beneath a wooden cot in an inner room.
| Operation Parameter | Field Detail |
|---|---|
| Incident Location | Bandigowdanapalya, Huliyurdurga hobli, Kunigal taluk |
| Target Residence | Home of Chikkamariyappa and Narasamma |
| Initial Livestock Loss | One baby goat killed and carried off |
| Standoff Duration | Approximately 6 hours |
| Specialist Deployment | Bannerghatta wildlife anaesthesia team |
| Final Outcome | Tranquilised, safely caged, and evacuated |
Maneuvering inside the narrow residential quarters required extreme precision to avoid cornering the predator into a violent lunge. Rescuers summoned an emergency intervention unit from Bengaluru, bringing in Kiran, a wildlife anaesthetist from the Bannerghatta biological park ecosystem, to steer the darting procedure.
The standoff dragged deep into the night. Trackers positioned protective mesh along external openings to block potential escape vectors into surrounding alleys. Around 3:00 AM, the specialist team identified a clean firing angle through an interior partition and fired a tranquiliser dart into the big cat.
Caged and unconscious, the animal was hauled into a transport vehicle shortly before dawn. Forest officials confirmed the captured leopard will undergo a mandatory medical evaluation to check for injuries, dehydration, and age before higher authorities determine whether to release the animal into a deep reserve forest or keep it under sanctuary supervision.