Two children killed in separate incidents in suspected leopard attacks in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri

Lakhimpur Kheri, UP: Two children were killed in separate incidents of attacks by wild animals in this district, police said on Sunday.

The first incident took place in Shardanagar forest range of South Kheri forest division.

A wild animal, alleged to be a leopard, took away a 12-year-old child named Sajeb of Gangabehar village while he was pushing his father's bicycle on Saturday evening.

The animal killed the child and his dead body was later recovered from a sugarcane field, about 500 meters away from the village, on Saturday night, the police said.

The victim's father, Munavvar, said that he was carrying fertilizer sacks on his bicycle to his village while his son was pushing the bicycle to help him. The route passed through dense sugarcane fields.

A leopard hiding in a sugarcane field came out of its hiding and dragged Sajeb inside the cane fields, he added. After a hectic search, Sajeb's dead body was recovered from a cane field.

Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), South Kheri, Sanjay Biswal, confirmed the incident and said that forest teams had been rushed to the spot and efforts were on to identify the wild animal, which might be a leopard.

The second incident took place in Kurtaiha village under Padhuva police limits, where a three-year-old Riza Bano was killed in a wild animal's attack. Her dead body was recovered floating in the Ghaghra river on Saturday. The village falls under buffer zone of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve (DTR).

Her mother said that a wolf had entered her home on Friday night and took away the child from her. However, the officials suspected that a leopard had attacked the girl.

Field Director, Dudhwa, Lalit Verma, said the presence of wolves in the area had never been earlier reported.