Forest teams continue search for leopard sighted near Hyderabad Metro station

Hyderabad, Oct 19 : Forest Department officials continued their search for a leopard that was sighted near the Miyapur Metro Rail station in Hyderabad.

Two teams of 10 forest officials assisted by the police were participating in the search operation behind the Metro Station in the Miyapur area in Kukatpally.

District Forest Officer (DFO) Laxman was supervising the operation. Authorities have alerted people living in the areas close to be cautious.

The leopard was briefly sighted on Friday. A short video clip of the animal walking on a pile of sand along a bushy patch was circulated on social media.

Initially, there were doubts about the location but forest officials confirmed that the background in the video clip matched with the area near the station.

The forest officials suspect that the animal in the video clip is a leopard. However, they were inspecting the area to see pug marks and gather other details to confirm whether it was a leopard or a wild cat.

The forest teams were focussing their search operation around the Metro Rail depot which is located next to the station and has some open scrub area. The forest officials with the help of police installed camera traps to monitor the leopard's movements.

The officials suspect after emerging into the open briefly, the leopard may have retreated into the depot.

Principal Chief Conservator of Forests R. M. Dobriyal said immediately after receiving a complaint, they sent a team to capture the animal.

Hyderabad Metro Rail officials learned about the animal’s presence in the area around 10 p.m. on Friday. However, no alerts were issued to the commuters and the employees at the depot.

In May, a leopard was caught near Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) in Shamshabad on the city outskirts.

After an operation lasting for five days, the forest officials trapped the big cat in a cage when it approached the live bait tied inside.

The three-year-old male leopard was shifted to Nehru Zoological Park and later released into forests.

Later, a leopard was also sighted near the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) at Patancheru near Hyderabad.