A male leopard entered a school premises in upper Assam's Jorhat district today and the panicked authorities were forced to declare holiday for the day.
Gardeners of the St Mary's School at Rowriah here found the leopard near the school building at around 11 am and upon seeing them the animal entered the school garden, Headmistress Sister Lince said.
The forest office was informed and its officials found pug marks of the leopard in the school compound, she said.
The forest department team placed a cage with a prey inside the school campus and towards the adjacent tea garden to trap the leopard, but till 5 pm it was not found.
As panicked parents wanted to take their wards back home, the authorities decided to declare a half-holiday, Lince said.
St Mary's School is located beside the Assam Agricultural University's (AAU) experimental paddy field, the tea garden and the Air Force Station (AFS) area covered with trees, bushes and grass.
"Though we have a compound wall on all the four sides, most probably the leopard jumped through the back wall adjacent to a few tall trees," said Sister Lince.
District Forest Officer Nobo Kumar Malakar who inspected the pug marks said they were of a young male leopard and similar marks were found recently in the AFS, AAU and North East Institute of Science and Technology.
Malakar said the forest department had managed to trap 15 leopards this year and later released them in Kaziranga National Park in the district.
