A tragic incident in the village of Pimparkhed (Ambe Wadi) in Shirur tehsil of Pune district — where 13-year-old Rohan Vilas Bombe was killed by a leopard on Sunday afternoon — has triggered a high-alert operation by the Maharashtra Forest Department (MFD). Authorities have issued a capture-and-shoot directive for the big cat, citing mounting fatalities in the region and widespread anger among villagers.
The attack occurred around 3:45 pm as Rohan was playing near his home on farmland when the leopard suddenly pounced and inflicted fatal injuries. Earlier in October, a five-and-a-half-year-old girl was also killed in the same village, and the week before that a 70-year-old woman in nearby Jambut died in a similar attack. The recurrence of such incidents — three fatal attacks in roughly a month in the same area — has aggravated tensions among local residents.
In the wake of the incident, villagers set fire to an MFD patrol vehicle and the base camp of the department’s Rapid Response team in protest of what they perceived as inadequate protection and delayed action. With the situation deteriorating, the MFD’s Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) approved a “shoot-at-sight” order — a first for the Junnar Forest Division — deploying sharpshooters, drones, trap-cages and camera-monitoring to locate the offending leopard.
Wildlife analysts caution that while the extreme step of elimination may address immediate risk, it does not tackle underlying causes of the human-wildlife conflict. Experts point to factors such as expanded sugar-cane cultivation, dense riverine terrain, abundant prey in agricultural zones, and shrinking forest cover in the region as contributing to close encounters between humans and leopards.
Local officials say they are intensifying efforts: 25 traps, 10 camera traps, drone surveillance and awareness campaigns have been initiated for villages along the Kukdi and Ghode rivers. Vigilance has been stepped up during dawn and dusk hours when such big cats are most active. At the same time, villagers have demanded that once captured, leopards should not be released back into nearby areas, and have called for the region to be declared a “leopard-free zone” to ensure community safety.
The death of young Rohan and the MFD’s unprecedented directive reflect the gravity of escalating human-leopard conflict in Pune’s fringes. While the elimination order may provide immediate relief to terrified villagers, sustainable resolution will depend on habitat management, agricultural practice reform and human-wildlife coexistence strategies. Without those, experts warn, the cycle of attacks, retaliation and fear is likely to persist—underscoring that conservation and safety cannot be separated in the region’s evolving landscape.
