Just 32 days after poachers allegedly killed a male leopard in Madariwala choe near Dholbaha, another male leopard fell prey to them in Bhera village, the last village of Punjab on the Himachal Pradesh border, last night.

Ironically, both animals (endangered and protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act) were killed in the home district of state Forest Minister Tikshan Sud.

Sources said some villagers noticed the leopard trapped and informed the Range Officer, who further gave this information to Divisional Forest Officer (Wildlife), Hoshiarpur, Satnam Singh.

They said the three-year-old leopard had reportedly died due to the “negligence and mishandling of forest officials” as when they give it a doze of tranquiliser manually, it did not regain consciousness.

The DFO said the animal was tied with a steel wire around its waist thus damaging its main nerves along the spinal cord.

“To rescue it safely, we put a net on its face and injected a tranquiliser manually, but it did not regain consciousness,” said Satnam Singh. The carcass of the leopard was shifted to the Takhani Wildlife Sanctuary last night.

Since state Chief Wildlife Warden Gurbaz Singh is in Delhi to attend a meeting of the Central Zoo Authorities, he directed Conservator of Forest and Wildlife Rattna Kumar and his subordinates to rush to the spot and take stock of the situation.

Gurbaz Singh also denied it to be a case of poaching. He said a post-mortem examination of the leopard was conducted late this evening. He, however, admitted that the department was functioning with a skeleton staff, adding that the department had written to the state government seeking training for the staff so that wild animals could be handled properly in such situations.

Coming down heavily on the state government, Gunraj Singh, former honorary wildlife warden (Hoshiarpur), alleged that the forest and wildlife authorities had gone in a deep slumber while poachers were busy eliminating such beautiful animals.

Moreover, the department had been implicating innocent villagers in poaching cases while the actual poachers were enjoying political patronage, he alleged.

Meanwhile, state Forest Minister Tikshan Sud has marked an inquiry into the incident. He, however, expressed ignorance about the incident and said a transparent probe would be conducted.