Kolkata: Fulati Oraon breaks down every time she is reminded of her cousin Dipesh who was mauled by a leopard, around 18 months ago. The 30-year-old homemaker lives in staff quarters of the Tasati Tea estate in the Alipurduar district of West Bengal, around 700 kilometres from Kolkata, the state capital.
Leopards look for prey
Dipesh was loitering outside his house in the evening, when a leopard hiding in the bushes attacked him and dragged him away in the tea garden, in October, 2023.
The 11-year-old was rescued by locals who armed with sticks ran after the leopard. The boy was rushed to a local hospital where doctors declared him dead, “He was the second of the three siblings and was a cheerful kid. We are yet to come to terms and remember him every day,” she said as tears welled up her eyes.
But Fulati is not alone as several incidents of leopards attacking humans and taking away their livestock abound in the picturesque tea gardens of north Bengal where the animal moves hunting for its prey. It is generally believed that around 350-400 leopards roam the tea belt of north Bengal though there is no official confirmation.
Ganesh Thakur, 52, a barber who also works in Tasati tea garden told EastMojo that a leopard hunted his goat, on February 9, this year, “The income from the tea garden is not enough and I do other work to run my family. I had ten goats that were kept for a sale to butcher but the leopard took one of them away from outside my house during the night hours.”
Panic and fear
Villagers living in staff quarters across the tea gardens concede that they do not allow their children to venture outside their houses after the dark. “It is quite risky for us to roam outside after the sun sets in as we are surrounded by tea gardens where the leopards normally rest. We fear getting attacked by the leopard,” said Ronika Turi, 20, a homemaker while holding her nine-month-old infant in her arms.
Md Azad Ali, 55, who drives an e-battery rickshaw, in the Birpara area of North Bengal, told EastMojo that he doesn’t dare to go outside for work during night hours, “It is quite risky to cross the tea gardens during night hours in the fear of being attacked by the leopards that lay hidden in the bushes. I park my vehicle after the dark which affects my livelihood but there is no alternative to it.”
Tea garden workers say that they face severe problems while taking serious patients to hospitals after sunset, “The e-rickshaw drivers do not want to come to our houses in the tea gardens for shifting critical patients to the hospitals. We have to wait till the morning hours which often deteriorates their condition. We have to solely depend on e-rickshaws as ambulances are not always available in remote areas,” said Tulsi Oaron, a tea garden worker in Birpara.
Staying alert is the solution
Dr Aritra Kshettry, working with the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) India and involved in research on leopards for over a decade classifies the attacks by the animal as accidental and predatory, “We have found that 99 per cent of the attacks are accidental as tea gardens are the habitats of the leopards and they attack to ward off any danger by the approaching human beings. The leopard mostly does predatory attacks on children for flesh as they are carnivorous. There is also the presence of dense livestock in villages close to gardens and leopards come looking for their prey.”
As a solution to the impending danger, he says that the tea garden workers should blow a whistle or make noises before starting to pluck tea leaves to alert the leopards for escape, “The tea bushes closer to human settlements should also be uprooted as they serve favourite hideouts for the animal.”
Shyama Prasad Pandey founder of SPOAR, a non-profit working on the environment told EastMojo that his team started distributing whistles to tea garden workers in 2020 and the efforts have been hugely successful, “We started distributing whistles to tea leaves pluckers in three gardens of north Bengal and instructed them to blow them while working in a particular section of the garden as it would help the leopard to run away.”
“The whistles were also blown after the interval of every 20-30 minutes to alert the leopards about the human movement. We found that the attacks came down drastically. The same technique is being implemented in other tea gardens. At present, even management of some tea gardens is distributing whistles to workers.”
As the evening envelops the sky, several women are seen taking their children inside their houses to keep them safe from the leopard that might just be waiting for its prey.
Also Read: Hospice of Hope: How a Mizoram doctor serves the forgotten
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