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Vacationing couple wakes up to leopard in Indian holiday town of Nainital

PTI
Nainital, Uttarakhand, IndiaUpdated: Aug 01, 2016, 06:34 AM IST
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A forest department team arrived with a cage and a tranquiliser gun but the leopard jumped out of the washroom ventilator and vanished into a nearby forest. (Representative image) Photograph:(AFP)
Imagine being locked inside a hotel room with a leopard for company.

A couple from Meerut, a city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, vacationing in the sylvan surroundings of Nainital, a popular Himalayan tourist destination in the Kumaon region of India’s Uttarakhand state, found a leopard pacing about in their room early in the morning.

The big cat smashed the window pane to get into the room as Sumit Rathore and his wife Shivani cowered behind the bed.

As the animal walked into the washroom, Sumit bolted the door from outside, locking in the big cat and raised an alarm, Ranger Pramod Tiwari said.

A forest department team arrived with a cage and tranquiliser gun to trap the leopard but it jumped out of the washroom ventilator and vanished into the nearby forest, he said.

Apparently, the one-and-half-year-old leopard had entered the hotel room after being chased by wild dogs, the ranger said.

The hotel where the incident took place is located in Tallital area.

Earlier this month, a black Himalayan bear was spotted roaming the streets of Nainital in the wee hours.

It broke the window pane of a hotel room where some tourists were staying.

After the alarm was raised, it got into a lake and swam across it, before disappearing into the Ayarpatta jungle. 

(PTI)