Forget beef ban, the need is #Leopardban!

It's a reversal of roles in the man-animal conflict. People at Baputigarh Murari village of Dibrugarh- Demow border just a couple of days back killed a leopard and consumed it.

Villagers at Koibartagaon in Assam's Sivasagar district were also in the news recently while preparing to eat an eight-month-old leopard. This is not the first time such an incident has taken place in upper Assam.

The state, which has some of the country's finest animal sanctuaries, has seen people killing and eating leopards in revenge for their cattle being killed by the animals!

It is true that Tigers eat people. But when so called civilised and literate people eat the same animal's flesh and haggle over the exercise, there is case to see it as an exceptional accident.

This would be roughly 3 years back that reports came in from Buxa's Goreshwar area. Within half an hour a full grown leopard's meat was distributed amongst villagers.  They cooked and ate the meat. There are many cases of eating elephants in the Assam Nagaland border.  Rhinos have also been eaten.  But most of these incidents took place in the interior of tribal areas. However, devouring a leopard is virtually unknown.

The question now is, will the guilty be tried under the Forest and Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 that could see them face upto seven years of jail?