A fully grown adult male leopard was tranquilised and captured by forest department officials in Ghaziabad after a high-octane seven-and-a-half-hour rescue operation at the premises of Green Field Public School in Govindpuram locality on Wednesday, officials said.
Forest officials said they have not yet been able to determine how a three-year-old male leopard entered a densely populated urban area like Govindpuram or how it reached the school campus which is not close to any forested areas. Officials said they suspect that the animal may have travelled along the banks of the Hindon river, the nearest point of which is around 14 kilometres from the school.
According to officials, forest teams reached the campus around 8am after being alerted by school authorities about the presence of a large cat. CCTV footage showing the animal roaming inside the school premises and on a nearby road also surfaced on social media.
“Initially, it took us some time to ascertain whether it was indeed a leopard, as the CCTV angles were unclear. Our teams, along with the police, barricaded the entire premises and began a search operation. In the afternoon, the leopard was spotted inside a washroom adjacent to the main school building. A team from Meerut was requisitioned to assist in tranquilising the animal,” said divisional forest officer (DFO) Isha Tiwari.
Officials said drones were deployed to scan the campus, while personnel conducted manual searches across the grounds. The leopard was eventually sedated using a single tranquiliser dart.
Officials faced difficulty positioning for a shot through the ventilation window and ultimately drilled a hole in the washroom wall. “Since the leopard was inside the washroom, we could not get a proper angle to fire through the ventilation window. We had to drill a hole in the wall to administer the tranquiliser. The leopard was successfully sedated, captured and is stable. It is around three years old and in good health. It will be released in the Shivalik forest range in Saharanpur,” Tiwari said.
School authorities declared an emergency and asked parents not to send their children to school. “Around 7.30am, one of our guards luckily spotted the leopard sitting near a washroom next to the main building. We alerted the police and forest department, and informed parents. Home examinations scheduled for the day were postponed,” said school director Prithvi Singh.
The campus, which has around 1,400 students up to Class 12, was secured by police and forest officials. Rescue nets were also installed at strategic locations as a precaution. The leopard was finally captured around 3.30pm.
Forest officials noted that leopards are capable of travelling large distances in a single day, often moving along riverbanks, forest patches and even railway or highway corridors.
Qamar Qureshi, a retired professor from the Wildlife Institute of India, said leopards are generally pushed out of their territory due to old age or displacement.
“Male leopards generally travel long distances, say about 20-40 kilometers on average at night. They move through forested areas and rivulets to find better habitat. They can feed on dogs, cattle, and even dead animals, and hide in structures to avoid human interaction. There is also a possibility that they are displaced when agricultural fields like sugarcane — peripheries of which they may have made temporary habitats — disappear.”
To be sure, leopard sightings are not uncommon in Ghaziabad, but are generally reported close to forested areas. On November 24, 2020, a leopard was spotted in Raj Kunj locality after emerging from the official residence of a Ghaziabad Development Authority officials. In January 2023, a three-and-a-half-year-old male leopard was killed by a speeding vehicle on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway in Bhojpur.
In February 2023, an adult male leopard entered the Ghaziabad court complex and injured 10 people before being captured and released in the Shivalik forest range. Days later, another leopard attempted to attack a villager in Tyodi village and killed a bull at a farm. In May 2023, an adult leopard was rescued from Chudiyala in Modinagar and released in the Saharanpur forest range. On February 25, 2024, a fully grown leopard was sighted near the Madhuban Bapudham housing scheme but escaped before it could be captured.