GURGAON: In April this year, a nine-month-old female leopard fetched up dead at a luxury golf course in Manesar. Nobody knew how it had got there or how it had died. And now it transpires, this was not the only one: around the same time, three more leopards were found dead in the same golf course, their carcasses in terrible shape.
Forest department officials, who have been probing this mystery for seven months now, claim to have finally identified the killers, but will only divulge the names in a Faridabad environment court in a week or two.
"In close vicinity to the spot where the first carcass was found, three more leopards were found during the probe," said a senior official of the forest department. TOI was the first to report about the dead leopard at the ITC golf course in Manesar on April 19.
The forest official said the leopards were not killed for the purposes of smuggling. "When we found the carcasses, the skin, toes and bones were intact. But they were not in a condition for an autopsy to be possible, so we cremated them as per rules," the official said. The initial probe had also indicated that this was not an act of poaching because no traps were found nearby.
On the condition of anonymity, a senior wildlife official said there is no specific evidence that the leopards were beaten to death or were injured in a fight with other animals in the adjoining forest area and took refuge in the golf course.
TOI tried repeatedly to contact Col (Retd) R K S Mann, the in-charge of ITC Classic Golf Resort, but he did not reply to either the text messages or phone calls.
