Srinagar, Aug 9: A 50-year-old Jal Shakti Department employee is battling for life after he was attacked and critically injured by a leopard in Haril area of Handwara in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district this afternoon.
Reports said that the individual came under attack while he was on way to a water valve (on/off point) at his native village in Darbal. The injured person was subsequently shifted to District Hospital Handwara from where he was referred to GMC Baramulla. The doctors at GMC Baramulla on sensing emergency referred the seriously wounded person to SKIMS Soura.
The person is said to have suffered serious injuries in neck and chin with his overall condition said to be critical – on filing of this report.
It is being suspected that the leopard attacking the elderly man is the one which recently mauled a minor boy to death at Monabal area.
When contacted, Block Wildlife Officer Farooq Ahmad Peer, expressed his helplessness to catch the beast. “We don’t have any sufficient equipments or manpower at hand to catch the roaming beast as most of the available means and employees have been taken to Baramulla, after a series of animal attacks in the recent past”, he said.gns