Bengaluru’s Electronic City on high alert after leopard spotted roaming near Phase 1 toll plaza

Can you imagine a leopard freely roaming on the road across a busy city like Bengaluru? A sense of unease gripped people living in the Electronic City of India’s Silicon Valley after a CCTV footage of a big cat roaming around Phase 1 toll plaza became viral on social media platforms.

Bengaluru police said the area is on high alert after the leopard was spotted moving from the Panak India Company area to the Nettur Technical Training Foundation (NTTF) ground around 3 am today. Forest officials have been informed about the big cat's movement. Local authorities and forest department officials are actively searching for the wild animal.

According to media reports, a leopard was seen crossing an overpass close to a toll plaza in Bengaluru, a hub for numerous software firms. In the CCTV footage, the leopard can be seen crossing the street and suddenly it turns back in the opposite direction towards the Nettur Technical Training Foundation compound.

"We got an update from the camera near the toll gate that a leopard had passed near the compound wall. Precautionary checks were conducted on the campus. The forest department officials also came to reconfirm and said that no leopard was seen,” NDTV reported Sunil Joshi, Principal of NTTF, as saying.

Joshi, however, claimed that a camera image suggested the movement of a leopard from the compound wall. NTTF, a training center, is taking all the necessary precautions."

"We have checked all the rooms and the CCTV footage, and there is no trace of this leopard here so far. The leopard was spotted walking near the pathway next to the compound, but we don't know where it went next,"Joshi added.

Earlier, too, Bengaluru residents reported the movement of the big cat. A few weeks back a leopard was also spotted in Bengaluru's Jigni industrial area which is located near Bannerghatta National Park.