MUZAFFARABAD, Feb 18: The officials of AJK Wildlife Department on Monday said they would be lodging a case against those responsible for the death of a leopard whose carcass was found northwest of Muzaffarabad on Friday evening.

Director of the AJK Wildlife Department Chaudhry Muhammad Razzaq told Dawn that a resident of Sunbal Pana village spotted the animal’s body on Friday evening.

A department official collected it the next day for an autopsy, which revealed that the leopard was six months cold and had been shot by a 7mm rifle.

“I will lodge a formal complaint with the police on Tuesday,” Razzaq said.

Earlier on Monday, a villager in Sunbal Pana, requesting anonymity, told Dawn that in fact two leopards had been killed and removed by the Wildlife Department.

Responding to the claims, Chaudhry Razzaq said that he had also received similar reports.

“I am not certain of their veracity,” he said, “but my staff and the police will look into the matter”.

Mr Razzaq immediately dismissed the suggestion that the leopards had been killed for commercial reasons.

He claimed that because of environmental degradation the leopards were unable to find food in their natural habitat and came to human settlements, where villagers killed them.

The erection of barbed wire along the Line of Control has also altered their habitat and driven them closer to villages, he said.

Claiming that the population of leopards in AJK was generally stable, he added that the regional government planned to set up a Wildlife Conservation Fund.