A leopard killed a four-year-old girl early morning on Tuesday while she was attending nature’s call, barely two feet outside her illegal shanty’s door on a hill in the forest area of Aarey Colony in Goregaon (east). The incident took place at around 6.30 am in the last slum from the forest end in Khadak pada situated 100 metres atop a hill. The victim Hiya Peter Mashi woke up early and was attending nature’s call when the leopard caught her by her neck and starting dragging her towards the forest. Her grandmother Lata seated nearby, heard her screams and started shouting for help. Lata’s screams broke the sleep of other family members, including another grandmother, two couples and five children aged below 12. They all spread out and started searching for her. Forest officials reached after two hours. Thirty minutes later, the leopard was spotted eating the girl in between stones and dense trees 50 metres away from her house. On seeing the group, the leopard ran away. The girl succumbed soon after. “Our family has been staying here for seven years. Hiya’s father Peter works for a factory nearby,” said Hiya’s aunt Bharti. A trap to catch the leopard has been laid barely 50 metres away from Mashi’s residence. All the shanties, including the victim’s shanty, are illegal. The government, however, will be providing '1 lakh to her family immediately through their forest department and they are likely to get another '5 lakh as additional compensation, said a Thane forest official, who conducted a panchnama. In another such incident, at around 7.30 pm, 11-year-old Sunil Bhawar was attacked by a leopard, who came from the rear, and caught his left thigh and lower back while he was walking near his residence with his father in Navapada, a tribal area in Aarey colony unit 19.
