A suburban school in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru had an unexpected visit from a male leopard on Sunday morning. Since it was a holiday, there were no children in the school, but the ten-hour-long effort to capture the animal left six people injured.
CCTV footage showed the eight-year-old leopard first entering the Vibgyor International School at around 4 a.m. The security guards alerted the police soon after, but the wild cat escaped to hide in the nearby bushes. After it re-entered the school, the scared leopard mauled several people, including conservation scientist Sanjay Gubbi, forest department employee Benny Maurius and a photojournalist. Security cameras also showed it brawling with a man near a swimming pool.
WATCH: Leopard strays into Vibgyor School campus in Kundalahalli (Bengaluru)https://t.co/bt1bLI1I8P
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The animal was eventually injected with tranquilisers and captured at 8.15 p.m. It was later taken to an animal rescue centre in the city's Banerghatta National Park.
Environmental experts suspect that the animal may have strayed from the forests near the school. In the last few years, there have been several incidents of big cats straying into populated areas in the outskirts of Bengaluru, as a result of human encroachment on animal habitats.