A leopard that may have escaped from a safari park and become “stuck” in the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) among alarmed inhabitants took the Islamabad Wildlife Management Board and Capital Development Authority more than five hours to apprehend.
Around 10 p.m., the IWMB had to use a tranquillizer to sedate the animal after trying unsuccessfully to entice it into a cage and confining it in a restricted area with the help of the volunteers and staff members there. The leopard would be placed at a rescue facility in the Rescue Center, which formerly housed the Islamabad zoo, according to Rina Saeed Khan, the director of the wildlife board. By the time this news went to print, the IWMB chief was in communication with the commissioner.
By 4 o’clock, videos of the cat roaming the housing society began to circulate on social media. These videos showed the scared leopard attempting to exit the area but instead racing into buildings and scaling walls.
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The leopard was also witnessed assaulting a volunteer for the IWMB twice. Throughout the entire incident that led to the wild cat’s capture, three people—two of them IWMB employees—were injured. In a another video, a man who appeared to be a private security guard fired at the leopard without caring for the wellbeing of the crowd that had gathered there. The relevant authorities, however, disputed this.
