A leopard strayed into ward 3 of Cooch Behar town on Thursday, triggering panic in the area and the town at large.

While residents of Kalabagan, the locality where the animal was sighted around 6.30am, locked themselves inside, hundreds of curious onlookers rushed to the area, prompting the administration to clamp prohibitory orders to prevent assembly of people.

It took around three hours for a team of the state forest department to dart the animal, put it in a cage and take it away to the Jaldapara National Park located around 35km from here in neighbouring Alipurduar district.

“The leopard entered my house by jumping over the boundary wall. As we raised an alert, it entered the washroom of Manoj Sarkar, one of our neighbours,” said Johra Khatun Roshni, a schoolteacher who lives in Kalabagan. She added that they informed the police immediately and a team reached Kalabagan from Kotwali police station.

“This is the first time in the past two-and-a-half decades that a leopard entered the town. Such an incident was earlier reported in the 1990s,” said Bimal Sarkar, a resident.

As the news spread, more and more people started gathering at the location to catch a glimpse of the animal. Many of them climbed onto roofs of shops and houses to catch a glimpse of the leopard.

The animal was tranquillised and netted by foresters a few hours later. Telegraph photo

By the time foresters reached the spot at 8.30am, the area was teeming with people.

The administration issued prohibitory orders across the ward to prevent crowding in the area so that the foresters did not face any problems in caging the animal.

Foresters started making arrangements to catch the animal in Sarkar’s washroom, trying to get a location from where they could get a clean shot from a dart gun to tranquillise the animal.

At around 11.30am, they fired a shot that hit the animal. As it fell unconscious, foresters used a net to wrap it.

The leopard was then carried out of the washroom and was put in a cage mounted on a vehicle.

Foresters said the leopard reached Cooch Behar from either Jaldapara or from the more nearby Patlakhawa forest, only around 15km away.

“The leopard had sneaked into an odd location. However, we managed to dart and

rescue it successfully. Later, it was released into the Jaldapara National Park,” said Sanjit Kumar Saha, the divisional forest officer of Cooch Behar forest division.