Leopard enters Maruti factory in Manesar, send workers into a tizzy

GURUGRAM: At a time when National Wildlife Week is being observed, another worrying instance of man versus wild situation emerged on Thursday when a fully grown leopard strayed in to Maruti Suzuki factory in Manesar.

Even though wild cats venturing into the habituated areas in Gurugram is not a strange occurrence, this is for the first time when the wild cat has entered an industrial unit.

Based on reports, the leopard entered in to the manufacturing unit of the auto major around 3.30 am and then meandered along the vast area.

Panic spread among more than 2,000 workers working in the morning shift, who were in the plant when the image of the animal roaming at the engine plant was trapped in the CCTV cameras.

Work was immediately stalled and all the employees were escorted to safety.

Meanwhile, to rescue the animal, over four teams of South Haryana Forest department and over 100 police officials were sent to the site to carry out the precarious task.

Having failed last year in Mandawar near Sohna, where a leopard was brutally killed, the Forest department did not take any chances in rescuing the animal, as well in ensuring safety of its workforce.

The operations to get a hold of the animal continued till late night and were still ongoing at the time of writing this report.

While there was no work by the employes in the morning shift, there was some amount of work that took place in the evening shift.

After the fiasco in Madawar, there was another mishap involving the wildcat when in April this year, an animal that had strayed into Durga colony of Sohna injured certain people, which also included a six-year-old.

There have been frequent sighting of leopards in areas of Mandawar, Hassanpur, Alipur, Sultanpur and forests along Manesar.

Not only in the outskirts, but panic also spread when there were rumours of the wild animals being found at Aravallis surrounding the posh DLF-5 area.

The latest incident has again highlighted the rapid degradation of Aravallis, where diminishing green cover and falling water table is resulting in wild animals venturing into human settlements for food and water.