New Delhi: Sixty-four people, including 10 women, were booked on Thursday in connection with the killing of a three-year-old female leopard by the villagers in Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, police said in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich.
The FIR was registered under various charges including those related to Wildlife Protection Act, Criminal Law Amendment Act 7, creating nuisance, attacking public servants and obstructing government work, PTI reported Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Akashdeep Badhawan as saying.
The DFO added that the FIR has been registered by the forest department at the Murtiha Police Station.
Earlier on Wednesday, the leopard was beaten to death by the villagers.
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This took place after the leopard injured 13 villagers, including three women, in Kathotia village inside the sanctuary.
Some forest personnel were also injured in the incident, which took place when the people were working in the fields.
The leopard, as per the forest department sources, had wandered out of the jungle and entered the village in the early hours of Wednesday, the news agency reported.
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The forest department workers to catch the leopard on receiving the information by casting a net.
The workers, however, failed to catch the leopard as the local villagers who had gathered there surrounded the animal and thrashed it with sticks, which led to its death.