By Belina Thapa Rising Nepal
Lamjung, Aug. 24: A resident from Ward 9 of Besisahar Municipality, Hari Bahadur Thapa, a former Lieutenant of Nepal Army, is now 69-years-old. However, if one considers his fitness, Thapa seems to be in his young age.
On Sunday, Thapa’s courage and bravery was acknowledged by many as he survived an encounter with a leopard killing the beast with a sickle.
At around 8 am Sunday, Thapa had arrived home with grass for livestock when he heard some noise in the field nearby. Suspecting it to be monkeys, Thapa walked towards the field.
Thapa had walked barely 10 metres when he saw some animal; when he looked more properly, it was a leopard. Thapa screamed when he saw the leopard heading towards him, but the wild cat attacked him at once.
He fell on the rice field after being attacked; he managed to get up grabbing the sickle he carried with him. Thapa started attacking the leopard in the head.
While Thapa attacked the leopard, he also received various bruises and cuts in his hands and legs. But Thapa did not stop attacking the leopard in the head.
“The encounter lasted for around 10 minutes. The leopard was attacking me with the claws and I was attacking with the sickle. I wouldn’t have survived if I didn’t have the sickle,” said Thapa as he remembered the gruesome encounter.
It was only after Thapa killed the leopard that the family members and neighbours arrived at the scene. Everyone was shocked when they saw the leopard dead in the field.
As per the police, Thapa was first taken to Lamjung District Community Hospital for treatment and was later referred to Kathmandu.
According to the officials at Sub-division Forest Office, Besisahar, the leopard which attacked Thapa was a female of one and a half years with a length of 3 feet and 4 inches and a height of 23 inches.
“The leopard died in the animal-human conflict but Thapa has suffered from injuries. Thapa will receive compensation as per the prevailing law,” said Mohan Raj Kafle, forest officer at Besisahar Sub-division Forest Office.
The officials also disposed the body of the leopard by digging a pit at the office premises.
भाद्र ८ गते, २०७७ मा प्रकाशित
