NEW DELHI, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- The wildlife department officials on Friday managed to tranquilize a leopard on prowl inside India's biggest car manufacturing factory in the outskirts of capital city New Delhi.
The leopard was sighted after 36-hours of continuous search, officials said.
"The leopard has been finally tranquilized this afternoon," Vinod Kumar, a senior forest department official at Gurugram said.
Reports said following the tranqilization, the big cat was taken for a medical examination and and will likely be released in the forest area later on.
The leopard strayed into Maruti Suzuki factory in Manesar -Gurugram in Haryana on Thursday morning. No sooner its movement was recorded on CCTV cameras of the factory, it was shutdown and employees were evacuated.
"The wildlife department officials were called in to track the animal, however for around 36 hours it evaded the rescue efforts," a factory official said.
The Mansar plant of Maruti Suzuki is the largest in India, manufacturing around a million vehicles a year.
Reports said wildlife department officials, according to reports, used two live goats and raw meat to lure the leopard out of hiding. The officials also moved in four cages to catch him alive. Firecrackers were also used to force the big cat to come in open inside the factory premises.
Meanwhile, in a separate incident in western state of Rajasthan, wildlife officials captured another leopard that strayed into a residential area in Sawai Madhopur district.
Wildlife officials say leopards stray into residential areas usually in search of food. However, the human presence makes them insecure, following which they resort to attacking people. At times these creatures are attacked by scared villagers in retaliation which also proves fatal for them.
There are strict laws in force in India against the killing of wild animals.
Last year, wildlife officials in southern Indian city of Bengaluru captured a leopard from a school after it mauled six people.
Wildlife experts say mass urbanization, denudation of forests, encroachment of forestland, vanishing of buffer zones in the forests and extraction of medicinal plants are some of the reasons responsible for increasing conflict between humans and animals.
Every year many people get killed or injured in the growing man-animal conflict across India.
