Chennai: For wildlife enthusiasts, sighting a leopard is bliss and the big cat’s serene movement is something bold and beautiful, but it is otherwise for nine villages of Chengalpattu. An elusive leopard has thrown their life into complete disarray.
Wedding bells have stopped ringing in for villagers of Anjur. Youngsters of Echankaranai are now doing double shifts in Guindy Estate returning home only the next morning. Women now move only in groups and no visitors call on their relatives and friends in Pulikudivanam and Anumandhai villages.
“Our life has changed a lot in the past two years, ever since the male leopard started moving around our village, the nearby villagers are not ready to have any marital ties with our village and hesitate to get their daughters married off with our children. There are no evening visitors to our neighborhood,” say villagers of Anjur located on South Chennai’s outskirts. During their interaction with DC, the villagers vent out their anger against the forest department for not trapping the leopard over the past three years.
“Last week behind the Echankaranai government school a pet dog was mauled to death by a strange animal and we believe it is the act of leopard”, says 24-year-old S. Gopinathan of Karuneelam village. “I work in Guindy estate and usually reach Paranoor railway station by 10 pm and from there head to my village, but ever since the leopard started attacking livestock, my parents insist on me not to come home after sunset. Now, I feel like working for a call centre, working in evening and night shifts returning home the next day”, he adds.
“We are used to snakes, deer, hare and porcupine. But the leopard is scary and we do not have nightlife and we don’t encourage visitors after evening as there are no street lights in our area” says Anjur villagers K. Raniamma and A. Thilagam.
According to Anjur village panchayat president D. Jayakumar all the nine villages located close to Chengalpattu forests have passed resolutions in the last three years urging the forest department to capture the leopard, but the big cat remains elusive. Just imagine every week calves, goats and dogs go missing in our neighborhoods and once in six months women return home shocked after sighting the beast. “We need the leopard to be caught at the earliest”, said 60-year-old A. Jayapal of Echankaranai.
