Caught on camera: Leopard causes panic inside school in India
BANGALORE, India - A leopard wandered into a school in southern India and injured three people as it tried to escape, officials said.
Onlookers including TV news crews watched the chase, which lasted several hours until forest workers shot the big cat with a tranquilizer dart on Sunday afternoon, according to Press Trust of India news agency.
The agency quoted school officials as saying the leopard was first seen on closed-circuit TV before dawn inside the private Vibgyor School in Bangalore, and then disappeared into some surrounding bushes.
The big cat later scaled a wall to re-enter the school grounds. It attacked and injured three people including a veterinarian and a man who was trying to climb over a gate to get away, the agency reported. Police said the three are being treated in a hospital.
Wildlife in India is increasingly coming into contact with human populations, causing scenes like the one at the school.
Last year, a leopard injured six people and drove residents indoors in a bustling northern Indian city, Meerut. That leopard wandered through an army hospital and a crowded market setting off a minor stampede in which two more people were hurt.
At one point, forestry officials closed in on the leopard in a warehouse, but it leaped through a concrete grill, breaking it and escaping.
In another part of Uttar Pradesh last year, a female tiger killed nine people, most of them poor villagers and farm laborers living on the fringes of a wildlife reserve park.