Surat: A leopard strayed into a three-storey building in the busy Nani Daman market area on Tuesday, triggering panic among residents and shopkeepers. The market is a popular tourist hub and usually crowded, especially on weekends.Forest department teams rescued the animal after tranquillizing it late in the evening. Officials said the unconscious leopard would be shifted in a cage to a forest department facility, where it would be revived and monitored.The leopard entered the Haweli Sweets building on the main road and climbed up to the third floor. Locals alerted the authorities soon after spotting the animal.Residents said they had reported leopard movement in the area on Monday, though there was no confirmation at the time. CCTV footage later established the presence of the big cat in the densely populated locality.Forest teams subsequently installed trap cameras and placed cages to capture the animal, but the initial attempts were unsuccessful. The leopard was finally traced on Tuesday when residents noticed it inside the building.“My wife spotted the leopard from our terrace when she went to dry clothes. She rushed downstairs in panic and alerted everyone,” said a local resident.Forest department numbers revealed that the state clocked a 63% rise in the leopard population in the six years – from 1,395 in 2016 to 2,274 in 2023.The South Gujarat region recorded the highest spike of 145.5% with 518 leopards in 2023 against 211 in 2016.
