A five-year-old boy was mauled to death by a leopard in an area with no previous record of big cat movement in the Dudhwa buffer zone on Saturday night, officials said.
The victim, Dilshad of Nayapurwa village under Singahi police limits, had accompanied his parents, Umed Ali and Nasimun, to the fields where they were working as labourers harvesting wheat. According to officials, the parents remained unaware of the attack while they were engaged in work. It was only in the evening, when they prepared to return home, that they realised their son was missing.
A search was launched by family members along with villagers in the surrounding fields. Dilshad’s partially eaten body was recovered around midnight near a brick kiln in neighbouring Nibauriya village. Forest officials said pugmarks found at the spot confirmed the involvement of a leopard. Family members also claimed that the animal was briefly seen hiding in bushes near the remains before it fled on seeing a gathering crowd.
Forest range officer Bhupendra Singh reached the spot with his team and provided immediate financial assistance to the family. Nighasan (buffer zone) sub-divisional officer (SDO) Manoj Tiwari said the body has been sent for the post-mortem examination and compensation will be given as per rules. He added that monitoring has been intensified and cages have been installed at identified locations to capture the animal.
This is the fifth fatality in big cat attacks reported from the Dudhwa buffer zone since January 10, pointing to a worrying pattern in the region.
A Dudhwa buffer zone official said the latest incident is particularly concerning as it occurred in a pocket where no leopard or tiger activity had been recorded earlier, suggesting that big cats may be expanding into new territories within the buffer zone.
Experts attribute this shift to increasing pressure on habitat and a rising leopard population, which is forcing the animals to move into new areas and bringing them into closer contact with human settlements. The trend has put forest staff on high alert as they grapple with a growing number of human-animal conflict cases in the region.
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