Forest officials in Hyderabad clarified on Saturday that the animal spotted near the Miyapur Metro Rail station was not a leopard, but a jungle cat. This determination came after officials analyzed the pugmarks left by the animal.
Vijayanand Rao, Divisional Forest Officer for Shamshabad, reassured the public, stating, “There is no need for people to panic.” He explained that the pugmarks measured only 3.5 to 4 centimeters, whereas a leopard’s pugmark typically measures at least seven centimeters.
The presence of a green belt near the Metro station led officials to believe that the jungle cat may have returned after being briefly visible in the area. Rao emphasized, “People need not panic. There is no chance of a leopard coming to the area even in the future.”
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Following reports of the suspected leopard sighting behind the Metro station in the Kukatpally area, two teams of ten forest officials, supported by police, launched a search operation late Friday. Authorities also alerted nearby residents to remain cautious as a precautionary measure.
A short video circulating on social media showed the animal walking along a pile of sand in a bushy patch, leading some to mistakenly identify it as a leopard. Officials noted that the zoomed-in footage contributed to the confusion.
In May, authorities captured a leopard near Rajiv Gandhi International Airport after a five-day operation. They relocated the three-year-old male leopard to Nehru Zoological Park before releasing it into the wild. More recently, another leopard was sighted near the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Patancheru, near Hyderabad.
