Surveillance video of
Sunday's attack showed the big cat chasing terrified men around the
private school's swimming pool, leaping on them and mauling them as they
tried to escape.
The 6-year-old male
leopard, suspected of straying onto the school grounds from a nearby
forest, was eventually tranquilized and taken to a wildlife park for
treatment.
Ravi
Ralph, wildlife chief of Karnataka state, said an injured forest
department official had been released from the hospital, while a
wildlife scientist who suffered chipped bones in the attack was
undergoing treatment.
Long ordeal
The
ordeal started at about 4.15 a.m. Sunday when a security guard at
Vibgyor International School in the Bangalore suburbs spotted the
leopard, according to S. Boralingaiah, police chief of Karnataka's
Davangere district.
Panicked men run for safety as the leopard roams loose by the school pool Sunday in Bangalore.
The animal was next spotted on surveillance camera about two hours later but then vanished until midafternoon, he said.
Officials
were on the brink of calling off the search when they spotted the
leopard at about 3:30 p.m. in a bush behind the school, the police chief
said.
The leopard then ran into the school, where officials locked it inside a bathroom.
But
it managed to escape through a ventilation duct into the swimming pool
complex, where the attacks took place, Boralingaiah said.
Officials
finally managed to strike the big cat with a tranquilizer dart at about
6.30 p.m., but it did not take full effect until about 8.15 p.m., he
said.
Ralph said an estimated 1,500 leopards were in Karnataka state but that they rarely strayed far into urban areas.
India has some 12,000 to 14,000 leopards, according to a study the Wildlife Institute of India commissioned.
The leopard mauls a man after dragging him down from a fence he attempted to climb over to escape.
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