Leopard enters villager's house at night, escapes as family sits guard

Mandya: Farmer Chinnaswamy and his family were fast asleep on Thursday night in their house in Haradanahalli village of Nagamangala taluk, when they were awakened by a low growl. They awoke with a start, sure that a wild animal had sneaked in.
Chinnaswamy swung out of bed, switched on the lights and looked around to see who was behind the menacing sound.He and his family were rudely shocked to see a wellbuilt leopard pacing through the house, growling, its eyes aglow. The terrified family members ran out of the house and quickly locked the door too. There was a hue and cry which awoke the fellow villagers and soon, a crowd gathered around the house where the leopard was locked in.
Chinnaswamy and his neighbours were at a loss over how they could keep the leopard inside and be safe until such time that police and forest officials arrived at the spot. They spent the night without sleeping a wink, zeal ously guarding the locked house to ensure the trapped leopard didn't slip away.
Early Friday morning, of ficers rushed to Haradanahal li village and cautiously pushed the house door open a few inches to peep in and lo cate the leopard.
They hunted high and low, flashing torches to smoke the animal out, but the leopard couldn't be seen anywhere.
They walked in gingerly , and found the house completely empty . The leopard had, no doubt, slunk out of Chinnas wamy's house. No doubt, it was the design of the house which helped. The totti mane (house with open central backyard) gave the animal ample opportunity to slink away under the cloak of darkness. Farmers and forest officers searched nearby areas for hours but couldn't locate the leopard, except for some pugmarks here and there.
Forest and police officers left the village, promising the people that cages would be placed around, and all efforts made to capture the leopard.Strangely enough, this is the second time a leopard has sneaked into Chinnaswamy's house. According to him, around two years ago, a big cat entered his cowshed and injured some cattle. However, he had managed to lock the leopard inside the shed and it was later captured by forest officers after it was tranquillized.
“It could be a rare coincidence that two leopards had sneaked into the farmer's house twice. We should take immediate measures to capture them,“ said a forest officer.
A youth was also injured while trying to take photographs of the leopard on his mobile phone.