Personnel of the Odisha forest department on Saturday launched a search operation at the Biju Patnaik International Airport here, after a woman claimed to have spotted a leopard near the dump yard area, officials said.

The forest department sleuths along with the local police scanned the area carrying nets and other equipment, but could not find any trace of the leopard, they said.

Earlier in the morning, the woman, a worker at the dump yard, claimed to have spotted a leopard there, a forest official said.

However, only pug marks of jackal were found during the search operation of the high-security airport premises, “but there was no sign of any leopard”, he said.

In 2019, officials of the department had caught a leopard from the Bhubaneswar airport premises and released the animal in nearby Chandaka forest.

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