A leopard that seemed to have strayed out of the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary was trapped in a cage near the diesel loco shed of the Siliguri Junction station on Monday.

An officer of the state forest department said it had received information from local residents a couple of weeks back that a leopard had been spotted near the loco shed.

A team of forest guards from the wildlife squad at Sukna, which is around 10km from here, and Baikunthapur forest division, arrived and searched the area. But the animal was not found.

The foresters placed a cage near the loco shed and the animal was found trapped on Monday morning.

“A number of tea estates are located adjacent to the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary and along the railway tracks that connect the Siliguri Junction station. It seems the animal somehow reached abandoned areas of the railway from the forest through one of the tea plantations and took shelter,” said Rajendra Jakhar, the chief conservator of forest (wildlife, north).

“The animal has been sent to the Bengal Safari Park where it will be kept under the observation of vets. Later, we will release it in core areas of the forest,” said Jakhar.

The loco shed is in ward 1 of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation.

This is not the first time that a leopard has strayed into the city.

On January 9, a leopard was spotted at Shivmandir. In May 2021, a leopard entered a house in Champasari and mauled three persons. A leopard sneaked into an abandoned garden near a shopping mall at Bhaktinagar in May 2018 and stayed there for about a week before it was rescued.

“Siliguri’s outskirts, which include fringe areas of forests, are witnessing rapid urbanisation. That is why wild animals often enter residential localities. Like leopards, elephants, too, entered different places of Siliguri a number of times in recent years,” said a forester.