A leopard killed a young boy on Diwali evening at Datrana village in Junagadh district’s Mendarda taluka. It was the third leopard attack on a person in the taluka in about 45 days, ETV Bharat Gujarat reported. Two of those three attacks killed a child.
The boy belonged to a migrant family of farm labourers from Madhya Pradesh who were working on a farm on the village outskirts. The leopard caught him near the farm and he died of neck injuries, according to DeshGujarat and ETV Bharat. Reports differ on his name and age, which they put at between six and ten. As the leopard ran off, it struck a couple riding a motorcycle and injured them, GSTV and DeshGujarat reported.
Dedkiyad, Ambala, Datrana: three villages in one taluka
The Datrana attack follows two others in Mendarda taluka since late September, as listed by ETV Bharat:
- Dedkiyad, September 23: a leopard killed a girl from a farm labourer’s family. US broadcaster News 3 Las Vegas also reported this attack, saying a surveillance camera recorded it.
- Ambala: a girl from a farm labourer’s family was badly injured and was discharged after a long stay in hospital.
- Datrana, Diwali evening: the boy described above was killed.
All three children came from farm labourers’ families. The Datrana boy was on his way to a farmhouse on the village outskirts to fetch water, DeshGujarat reported.
Six cages and a failed tranquiliser attempt
Forest department staff have put cages around Datrana to trap the leopard, both DeshGujarat and ETV Bharat reported. A vet from the Simade Animal Care Centre first tried to track the leopard and tranquilise it, but failed. About six cages were placed after that, DeshGujarat said. ETV Bharat said its reporter could not reach forest officials because of the festival holidays.
Datrana’s sarpanch, Rakesh Gohel, told DeshGujarat that leopards often enter farmland and villages. He linked this partly to tree felling in forest areas and asked the government for a plan to control the leopard population.
Gujarat counted 2,274 leopards in 2023
Gujarat’s own leopard census recorded 2,274 leopards in 2023, up from 1,395 in 2016, a rise of about 63%. Both Vibes of India and DeshGujarat reported these figures. Saurashtra and Kutch hold about half the state’s leopards.
In February, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel asked the forest department at a State Wildlife Board meeting to explore a separate leopard sanctuary, DeshGujarat reported. The department was weighing a large rescue centre or sanctuary in Saurashtra or South Gujarat. Gujarat already has 8 to 10 small rescue centres, including Sasan, Pavagadh and Jambughoda, where leopards that have killed people are kept for life. No decision on a new sanctuary has been reported since.
Leopard attacks on children in Saurashtra are not new. We reported a two-year-old killed by a leopard in Gir Somnath in August 2025.
Sources: DeshGujarat, ETV Bharat Gujarat, GSTV, News 3 Las Vegas, Vibes of India, DeshGujarat (February 2026)
This report was written with AI assistance from the publicly reported sources linked here; each fact was cross-checked against at least two of them.