A seven-year-old boy at a tea estate in Alipurduar district died in a leopard attack late on Monday evening.

Sources said that around 8pm, Sani Oraon, of Dheklapara tea estate in Birpara-Madarihat block, was playing in the courtyard of his house with some other children.

Suddenly, according to the children and other eyewitnesses, a leopard, which is suspected to have strayed into the tea estate, jumped into the courtyard and pounced on the boy.

It then grabbed Sani with its teeth and dragged him away.

His family members and other children raised an alert. Soon, local residents started searching for the boy.

Within a few minutes, the boy was found injured and bleeding in a bush which is around 150 metres away from his house.

Local residents rushed him to the state general hospital in Birpara, which is around 8 kilometres away.

The on-duty doctor examined the boy and pronounced him dead.

As the news spread, residents of the garden got agitated and demonstrated in front of the forest range office in Dalgaon, alleging that the forest department was not vigilant enough to prevent leopards from intruding into human habitats.

Cases of leopard attacks are occurring frequently as the animals enter human habitations in search of food. On August 27, a leopard attacked a 50-year-old woman in the neighbouring Falakata block of the district and severed her head from her torso.

Earlier, on June 22, in the same Dheklapara tea estate, a wild leopard attacked a minor boy and critically injured him. He underwent a prolonged treatment at North Bengal Medical College & Hospital and was later released.

In the Birpara-Madarihat block, there are 19 tea estates. In 2018 and 2019, five children, aged between five to 17 years, died in different tea estates of the block owing to leopard attacks, said a source.

Senior forest officials, when asked about these incidents, said as it was easy to hunt for prey in tea estates, leopards often sneak into tea gardens from forests.

“It is an unfortunate incident. To have an idea about the number of leopards in the tea gardens of Dooars, we have planned to conduct an estimation of the species. Once we have the details, appropriate steps will be taken to prevent such attacks,” said Ujjwal Ghosh, the additional principal chief conservator of forests (north).