Camera traps placed to monitor leopard at Valparai tea estate following minor girl’s death

Forest Department uses camera traps to monitor leopard activity after fatal attack on girl in Valparai tea estate.

The Forest Department staff on Sunday fixed camera traps in a tea estate near Valparai, where a leopard mauled a four-year-old girl to death on Saturday. A team led by Valparai Forest Range Officer G. Venkatesh placed six pairs of cameras in the tea estate at Oosimalai.

“The movement of the carnivore will be monitored using the camera traps for further action. Meanwhile, the staff educated the estate labourers about the precautions to be followed to avoid encounters with leopards. The staff had been doing awareness activities in the past, too,” he said.

As per preliminary investigations, a leopard attacked Afsar Khatun, daughter of Ainul Ansari and A. Naziran from Jharkhand, around 1.30 p.m. near the line houses of estate labourers. Her parents, labourers of a private tea estate, had not gone for work.

The woman, according to the police, had asked her daughter to wait on a rock to protect her from leeches, when she was collecting vegetables nearby. A leopard that was in the tea bushes mauled the girl and dragged her to some distance. After being alerted by the woman, workers launched a search and found the girl dead in tea bushes.

The Valparai police said that the body was handed over to the family after the post-mortem examination conducted at the Government Hospital, Valparai, on Sunday.

Mr. Venkatesh said that ₹50,000 was handed over to the family of the deceased as an immediate relief and the balance of the solatium, ₹9.50 lakh, would be given later.