Vishakhapatanam, February 27: A panther strayed into the densely populated MVP Colony in the city and stay put in an abandoned quarter of the Police Department, adjacent to the Task Force Police Station on Saturday.
Writer of the police station Ratanraju got the shock of his life when he found the panther sitting inside the ground floor quarter, where he had gone for taking rest at about 11.45 a.m. He immediately called his colleagues and they mustered courage to see if it was really a panther. A constable Parmesh confronted the animal on the first floor house of the building. He had the presence of mind to lock the animal inside by bolting the main door from outside.
The drama began at around 2 p.m. when Forest Department officials arrived and found that there was no qualified tranquilizer.
Finally, Indira Gandhi Zoological Park’s veterinary doctor Srinivas who arrived late, as he missed the flight from Hyderabad due to the Telengana agitation, could finally tranquilise the panther. Once the big cat was tranquilised it was shifted to the zoo.
During his early inspection of the panther, the doctor said it was a big one and not a cub as understood by the policemen who spotted it first.
Chief Conservator of Forests N. Prateep Kumar and DFO (Territorial) P. Rammohan Rao visited the site and inspected the location.
-Agencies