Animal sighted near Hyderabad Metro Station not leopard, say forest officials

Hyderabad, Oct 19 (IANS) The animal sighted near the Miyapur Metro Rail station in Hyderabad was not a leopard but a jungle cat, forest officials said on Saturday.

After analysing the pugmarks, the forest officials concluded that it was not a leopard.

Vijayanand Rao, Divisional Forest Officer, Shamshabad, told media persons that there was no need for people to panic.

"The pugmarks are only 3.5 to 4 centimeters. A leopard’s pugmark will be a minimum of seven centimetres," he said.

Since there is a green belt near the Metro Station, the forest officials believe the jungle cat may have returned after being briefly sighted in the open.

"People need not panic. There is no chance of a leopard coming to the area even in the future," he said.

Two teams of 10 forest officials assisted by the police started the search operation late Friday after a suspected leopard was sighted behind the Metro Station in the Miyapur area in Kukatpally.

As a precautionary measure, authorities had alerted people living in the areas close to be cautious.

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

The forest officials say that since the person zoomed in on the animal while taking the video, it looked like a leopard.

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.

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