Amreli (Gujarat): A five-month-old child and a three-year-old baby were killed by a lioness and a leopard in separate incidents in Liliya and Savarkundla respectively in Gujarat's Amreli, forest officials said.
It was learnt that the five-month-old child, named Vishal was taken away by the lioness when he was sleeping with his family, who are labourers, in the open in Khara village in Liliya. The child's body parts were recovered from a forest area near the village. After which, the forest officials set up cages and the lioness was caught a kilometre away from the incident spot.
In a separate incident, a three-year-old child, named Bhupat died after he was attacked by a leopard in Karjala village of Savarkundla taluk. The forest department managed to cage the leopard later on.
Both the lioness and the leopard have been taken to the animal care centre of the forest department. Their samples will be sent to the laboratory for analysis and if they are found to be man-eaters then they would be imprisoned, forest officials said.
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The two deaths have triggered panic in the district. In view of the two incidents, the forest department has formed a team of 10 Forest Tracker Forest Officers and Rescue Forest Personnel in both the taluks. They are scanning the entire area and an operation has been launched for searching lions and leopards.
Around 25 people have been killed in attacks by lions and leopards in Amreli district in the last one year. Out of which, 15 attacks involved leopards and 10 attacks were by lions.
