A leopard mauled a 9-year-old girl to death in Ekeshwar block of Pauri district in the third such incident in the area in a fortnight, police said here today.
The girl was playing outside her house last evening when the big cat pounced on her and dragged her into the bushes nearby. When the girl's friends raised an alarm and the villagers ran after the leopard, it escaped into the forest, leaving the child dead, they said.
This is the third such incident in the area over the last 15 days.
The man eater leopard had claimed its first victim in Patal village of the district on March 15. Then it killed a woman in a nearby village while she was cooking in the kitchen on March 31.
The forest department has declared it as a man-eating leopard and deployed a team of its personnel to trap it.
