A four-year-old boy was killed by a leopard in Dehradun’s Singli village of Rajpur area on Wednesday. The officials said that the police received information in the wee hours of Wednesday that a leopard had taken a Singli resident Arun Singh’s son Ayansh (4) from the courtyard of their house late on Tuesday night. The Dehradun senior superintendent of police Ajai Singh directed the officials concerned to conduct an urgent and extensive search operation in the village and nearby forest area.

The officials said that considering the sensitivity and gravity of the situation, several police stations in-charges and circle officers of the city were directed to survey the vicinity and surrounding forests in search of the missing child. The SSP himself arrived at the village in the wee hours to look for the child. The police consistently searched for the child and managed to find his body in the nearby woods early on Wednesday morning. The officials said that the loss shattered the deceased's family and villagers. The villagers also expressed their fear about the leopard who might return and pose a danger to the residents. The SSP has directed the respective police station in-charge to stay cautious and take assistance from the other departments concerned to ensure the safety of villagers.

It is pertinent to mention here that though leopard are known to inhabit the forested areas on the outskirts of the city, the cases of human-wildlife conflict in Dehradun are few and far between. The incident of a child being killed by a leopard is a case of human-leopard conflict in Dehradun after a considerable period of time.