Leopard Scare at Miyapur Metro Station, Officials Launch Late Night Search

Hyderabad: Forest department officials, assisted by the police, on Friday night launched an urgent search for a leopard that was briefly sighted near the Miyapur Metro Rail station even as people living in the areas close by were alerted to be cautious.

The presence of the leopard came to light after a short video clip of the animal walking along a bushy patch did the rounds early in the night. Though initially there were some doubts about the location, an on-the-spot inspection by forest officials confirmed that the backdrop seen in the video clip matched the area near the station. “By the looks of the animal in the clip, it is a leopard,” a senior forest official said.

The station is next to the Metro Rail depot which has some open scrub areas, It is suspected that after emerging into the open briefly, the leopard may have retreated into the depot. Inquiries with Metro Rail officials revealed that they too learned about the animal’s presence in the area around 10 pm and no alerts were issued till around 10.30 pm to commuters at the station.

The last train arrives at Miyapur station at 11.23 pm. Metro Rail officials also said that no immediate alert was issued for the staff working at the Miyapur depot.

Forest department officials said that their staff from Chilkur range were rushed to the spot to search for the animal along with police officials. A senior forest officer said that it was likely that the leopard came near the Metro station from some nearby scrub areas but that the department officials were on the field searching for pugmarks.

One of the officials who was in the search team corroborated the location seen in the video clip as shot from near the Miyapur station.

As of late night, the search for the animal was still on. This is not the first incident of a leopard straying into the city, with several such incidents reported in the past few years. A department official said leopards are adept at living in peri-urban areas in basic scrub forests. With so much development and construction going on in and around the city, it is not surprising that leopards are seen from time to time as they may be figuring out where to go next, the official added.

April 2024: Leopard seen in the RGI Airport in Shamshabad. Trapped a month later in May by forest department officials.

Dec. 2022: Leopard enters Hetero Group’s drug manufacturing unit, trapped same day by forest.

Feb. 2019: Leopard seen on Icrisat campus in Patancheru. Captured three months later, in June. Another leopard that entered Icrisat in 2014 was captured safely.

May 2000: Leopard seen resting by the road in Mailardevpally near the Kattedan bridge. Leopard caught in Walamtari campus in October the same year, 20 km away. It was believed to be the leopard seen in Mailardevpally.

Dec. 2024: A leopard strayed into Jubilee Hills Road No. 71. It fell from a height of 30 feet, was tranquillized and captured. It succumbed to its injuries at the Nehru Zoological Park