Yavatmal: The mystery over the death of two leopards in Pusad forest division here on Monday seems to have been resolved with forest officials arresting a villager who confessed to have poisoned the felines.
Police arrested Parad village resident Premsingh Rathod (40) yesterday on grounds of suspicion.
During interrogation, Rathod confessed to have kept poison in his farm to kill the wild cats, who had allegedly killed his cows, Forest Development Corporation of Maharashtra (FDCM) general manager R S Yadav said.
However, when he saw the dead leopards in his farm, he got scared and dumped them in the nearby Pusad forest.
After the arrest, the accused was produced in a local court which remanded him to judicial custody.
"We produced Premsingh before the court which remanded him to magisterial custody," FDCM assistant General Manager Bhau Gade said, adding that they would seek his police custody from the court, for further investigation in the matter.
Carcasses of two leopards, a seven-year-old mother and her 1.5-year-old cub, were found in the Parad village of Pusad tehsil of Yavatmal district on Monday.
"Preliminary postmortem findings confirm that the leopards died of poisoning as their carcasses are intact," Chief Conservator of Forest Dinesh Tyagi had said on July 31.
The leopards were suspected to have been killed in a farm after which their bodies were dragged into the forest.
PTI
