It was 9 pm on Monday when four-year-old Nagamma Poojari, daughter of a labourer, ventured out of her family’s shanty in Aarey Colony to answer nature’s call. As the little girl bent over, a leopard pounced from the bush behind and grabbed her by the neck. She was the eighth to be killed in a leopard attack this year. Hours earlier, 25-year-old Vijaya More (25) had ventured out of the colony to pluck flowers. She was attacked too but managed to escape with two cuts (see photo). Leopard attacks have increased around the boundaries of the 103-sq km Borivali National Park, the largest forest sprawl within a metropolis in the world, and wildlife official A.R. Bharati has reasons to worry. ‘‘There are more than 500 spotted deer in the forest today, which is almost double the number two years ago,’’ says Bharati. ‘‘Yet the leopards are attracted towards human settlements in search of easy prey like dogs.’’ Wildlife experts say human kills are quite rare in spite of the incursions into the park. Slums and housing blocks have gradually edged into the 103-sq km expanse of the world’s largest city forest. Lush forests once stood where the plush Royal Palms golf course, club and condominiums came up in Goregaon. There is, says Bharati, only one solution: a 98-km wall along the periphery of the park. The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests had sanctioned Rs 10 crore way back in 2002 for a 22-km wall at the Malad-Kandivli stretch of the park. The forest department is also proposing boundaries at the Kashmira and Aarey Colony ends for the phase after. But construction hasn’t begun yet, mainly because of relentless opposition from politicians: a wall will pass through encroaching shanty towns. The Bombay High Court said in 1997 that a 98-km wall should be built. The forest department brushed it off as too long and costly. ‘‘All human encroachments will have to be removed from the Park to make the wall,’’ points out environmentalist Debi Goenka.
