Jammu, November 18
The wild life department has asked the Army to shoot the two leopards that have killed nine persons in the border district of Rajouri.

The Chief Wildlife Warden, Mr A.K Srivastava, told this correspondent here today that as the officials of the department and the police were finding it difficult to track these leopards, assistance of the Northern Command of the Army had been sought to shoot these wild animals.

The two leopards have been on the prowl for the past sometime in the Naushera and Thanamandi areas of the district. Several other people have been wounded by these leopards.

Mr Srivastava said four other persons in the area had lost their lives due to attacks by black beer.

The wildlife department had earlier authorised the police to shoot the man-eater leopards, but now with an increase in the attacks on human beings, the Army has been asked to kill the two leopards.

Continued attacks by these wild cats have created panic in the area and the people have been demanding protection from the wildlife authorities.

The wildlife department has also got alarmed due to official reports of a large number of black beer having come in the Surankot area of the border district of Poonch in the past two days due to snowfall in the neighbouring mountains.

Residents of the nearby villages were afraid that the beer might start attacking human beings when they stray into the villages in search of prey.

The wildlife traditionally migrated to the plains in Pakistan and the Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) during snow season, but their area of operation has got confined within the Indian territory due to border fencing by the Army.

Moreover, the wildlife department was not equipped to handle the man-eater leopards and other dangerous animals. The department does not have even trapping nets in the districts.

Interestingly, the department possesses only two tranquiliser guns-one at the headquarters in Jammu and the other at Srinagar. This has made the job of overpowering the man-eater leopards very difficult and the authorities were left with no alternative but to shoot them.

The wildlife department in the state has never conducted a census of leopards and with their fast increasing population it might become difficult for the authorities to control them from straying into the villages in search of prey.

Jammu, November 18
The police has arrested a school student who was deputed by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) to throw a grenade at a congregation in a mosque at Doda.

The SSP, Doda, Mr Manohar Singh, identified the boy as Bashir Ahmed, who was given a grenade by a terrorist of LeT to explode in a mosque in the town.

During interrogation, the boy told the police that one of his former classmates, Irshad, who had joined the LeT, gave him the grenade. However, he could not accomplish the task because of the presence of police around the mosque.

The police is interrogating the arrested boy.