By Panther Shooter :
" On the 11th of January in 1963 , the 8 year old daughter of my mother's Garo ( tribal people who live in the hills of West Bengal ) maid servant had gone out to play in the evening in to the vast gardens of the Tea Estate . She never returned to the Servant's Quarters that night .
The next day , a small search party was organized to comb through the entire Tea Estate in order to find the child . Find her , we did . There , she was ... Lying face down among the tea plants ; dead as New Zealand mutton . She was missing flesh from her buttocks and this was the tell tale sign of a man eater's grisly work . When we turned the corpse over .... we saw that the poor child's rib cage had been torn open and her lungs were no doubt pierced . Her innards were jutting out of a massive cavity in her stomach . Her ears were both bitten clean off and she was missing massive hunks of flesh from her face and neck . I knew now that this was the work of a Hunting Leopard and NOT the work of a man eating royal Bengal tiger . When a man eating Hunting Leopard attacks their prey from the front , they use their fangs , their fore paws AND their hind paws to inflict injuries upon their prey . They use their fangs and fore paws to mangle the victim's face , neck and chest . They use the claws on their hind legs to disembowel their victims .
Back in the 1970s , there used to be far more fatalities caused by leopard attacks , then there are , in modern times . This was because , back in those days the wounds on a person caused by a leopard were far more likely to turn septic , than in modern times . These days , if a wretch unfortunately falls victim to a leopard's attack , then they will look as if somebody dropped a buzz saw on them . However , as long as they are reasonably close to a medical facilities or medical supplies ...They have a 85 % chance of survival .
For some reason unknown to me , the wounds caused by the claws or fangs of a Leopard demonstrates a disturbingly high propensity to turn septic . This propensity for the wounds to turn septic is actually even higher than the wounds caused by the fangs and claws of a royal Bengal tiger .
Unlike a royal Bengal tiger ( which will not stop mauling you until you are dead . ) , a Hunting Leopard will always spring on to their human victim and give them a short series of bites and scratches before making off . The exception to this rule , however ..... is the Hunting Leopard which had turned man eater . This feline menace will not cease to maul you , until it has made a meal out of you.
The little girl's mother was reduced to a state of catatonic shock , upon seeing what was left of her sweet and innocent young daughter . 3 days after that , another of our employees ( a middle aged tea plant harvester ) was found dead in a similar manner near our old water well on the North West corner of the Tea Estate . Once again , the wound patterns on the corpse of the poor wretch were indicative of a large man eating Hunting Leopard . More to the point ... the wound patterns looked exactly identical to the wound patterns on the 1st victim .
It was now that it dawned upon me that we were dealing with a man eating Hunting Leopard which had decided to make Jolpaiguri Tea Estate his larder .
And unless he was put down ... the fatalities would doubtlessly be on the rise . I then took it upon myself to end this monster , once and for all .
My friends and fellow former Freedom Fighters , Sgt. Kawshik Rahman , Capt. Kareem Hossain Newaz and Maj. Poton Khan who are regular contributors to African Hunting Forums have repeatedly spoken about the virtues of employing Garo tribes men as trackers in their writings . Therefore , I shall not bore anybody by repeating how these Garo tribes men were without a doubt the most competent trackers of game in existence .
If a game animal passed through a certain area , then the Garo tribes men WOULD find the tracks , plain and simple .
I had a most competent Garo tribes man at my aid , whom I shall refer to as " Tracker Extraordinaire " or " TE " for short . TE was the father of 1 of our tea garden harvesters and was in his early 40s when my family 1st knew him . He used to work as a tracker of game animals for " Rao Naidu Shikar Limited "( a shikar outfitting company based in Jodhpur ) prior to 1972 . TE was more than just a tracker to me and was someone whom I genuinely appreciated and valued to be by my side . I considered him to be a friend . While most of our employees would refer to me , as Choto Malik ( Junior Master ) , I would always allow TE to refer to me by my name after an incident where he saved my life in 1972 from an enraged Asian Sloth Bear .
I assigned TE to find the tracks of this man eating menace and as usual ... TE did not disappoint . We followed the tracks of the Hunting Leopard all the way to the North West end of Tea Estate . It was quite clear that the monster was coming down from the forested hills in to the Jolpaiguri Tea Estate through the North West point . Alright ... Now that we knew which route the man eater was using , it was time to implement phase 2 of my plan - Getting live bait to entice the monster .
Mom and Dad ( who , by grace of God are alive and well today and shall turn 88 and 91 respectively this year . ) were extremely kind towards our employees and let them keep their personal goats and chickens ( for their own eating ) on our property . I began to request each of them to lend me 1 of their goats to use as live bait for the monster . However , whenever I was actually disclosing to them the actual reason WHY I wanted to borrow 1 of their prized goats ... everybody was refusing . I do not hold any grudges against them for their refusal in the slightest . Our employees were not affluent people and a goat back in those days was a valuable source of milk and ( in the case of male goats or female goats which stopped giving milk ) fresh mutton .
After 1972 , several butcher shops and restaurants which used to sell meat products ( even if the meat was not from cattle ; an animal sacred to those who follow the Hindu faith ) were unfortunately closed down , as it was not uncommon for large groups of Hindu vegetarians to form mobs and lynch ( and even kill ) butchers or the employees of restaurants who used to serve meat . Sadly , this practice is still common in India today ( as recent international News Coverage is bringing to light . )
My family , close friends and employees got all of our fresh meat from goats and chickens raised on the Tea Estate , alongside the meat from the game animals which I would harvest from my nightly poaching activities . The last time that I had enjoyed a beef rib eye steak was in 1970 and I could not enjoy another beef steak again until I moved to Bangladesh in 1975 , with my family .
Thus , it came to me as no surprise as to why none of my employees were willing to lend me 1 of their goats .
Fortunately , the Lord works in mysterious ways . The young son of Dad's chauffeur had managed to catch a Baboon in a snare and had offered the varmint to me , for use as live bait . I knew that this would be perfectly acceptable , because Hunting Leopards were known to profess a fondness for the flesh of baboons .
I had our employees tie the Baboon to a tree in the North West corner of the Tea Estate with a length of strong nylon cord around it's neck ( We had to ensure that the cord was strong enough , so that the Baboon could not possibly chew through it and escape ) . I then had my employees dig a hole for me in the ground roughly 20 feet away from the Baboon , as a hiding place . This was done by using a shovel and a hatchet , before lighting a small controlled fire inside the hole , and fanning the smoke to spread through out the entire hole. This was done in order to kill / drive away any snakes , rodents , insects or other pests which might be living inside the hole. As an added precaution , half a can of Insect Repellant was emptied in to the hole , as well .
In case , some of you gentlemen might be wondering why I would choose to hide in a hole in the ground ( on the same level as the man eater) , rather than in the safety of a blind / macchan in a tree ( in an elevated position ) ... then , here is the reason . In the Jolpaiguri Tea Estate , there were not too many large trees around . The sparsely scattered large trees which WERE present in the Tea Estate did not have trunks thick enough or strong enough to support human weight .
Thus , I made myself comfortable , sitting in that hole as the sun began to set . The top of the hole was mostly covered with a bamboo matress , which was topped with grass and leaves ( so that the Hunting Leopard did not notice the hole . ) There was only a little gap present , through which I could stick out the top of my head and take a peek at what was going on .
Mom had made me some cold roasted mutton sandwiches , which I had brought along with me to eat in my hiding spot .
I sat inside the hole , eating my meal and drinking a bottle of chilled orange juice ( Even though , I enjoyed beer greatly ... I made it a point to never ever consume liquor or alcoholic beverages prior to a Shikar , especially a Shikar involving dangerous game such as man eating Hunting Leopards . Shikar was an activity where I always needed to have all of my wits about . ) . My IOF 12 Bore DBBL gun , lay across my lap , loaded with an IOF 12 Bore " Ball " cartridge in each barrel . I had a leather satchel slung on my side , which housed spare cartridges .
Night time came and the Baboon's endless incessant screeching was bound to draw the leopard towards me , I thought . I was not mistaken in my assumption .
From a great distance , I could see the outline of a large Hunting Leopard making it's way towards the Baboon .
1 advantage of hunting in Jolpaiguri Tea Estate was that most of the tea plants were no larger than 3 feet in length and thus the terrain was quite open . This could invariably allow me to see the leopard ( or indeed any game , which I was hunting ) from a great distance away and allowed me to have greater visibility . This was a stark contrast to the hunting carried out my close friends , Sgt. Kawshik Rahman or Maj. Poton Khan during their careers as Professional Shikaris prior to 1972 . They had to hunt and follow up leopards ( and indeed , most other game . ) in to very thick shrub where visibility and maneuverability was always an issue .
Another advantage for me , was that man eating leopards are infact far easier to hunt than ordinary trophy leopards . Unlike most ordinary trophy leopards ( who will make off as fast as their legs can carry them , if they can sense human presence nearby . ) , a man eating leopard has lost all of his fear of human beings . Therefore , if he senses human presence , the man eater will not attempt to escape the human beings , but will rather stand it's ground or even attempt to charge the Shikari(s) . I personally consider this to be an advantage , because it allows me more convenience in placing my shot on the monster , at closer ranges and with a greater degree of accuracy .
As I readied my IOF 12 Bore DBBL gun and took 2 spare cartridges to keep between my fingers for a hasty re load , I could not help , but wonder why I was not seeing any rosettes ( or " spots " ) on the Hunting Leopard as it was getting nearer to the screeching Baboon . Yes , I knew that it was dark , but did my eye sight really go THAT bad that I could not make out the rosettes on the Hunting Leopard's skin now ? Even a month prior to this incident , I had shot another man eating Hunting Leopard at night and I could notice the rosettes on that leopards skin , even at night from a distance . My eye sight was fortunately perfectly alright . So what exactly was going on ?!
Meanwhile , the screeching Baboon was desperately attempting to break free from the nylon cord which was binding him to the tree , in a desperate attempt to escape the Hunting Leopard . I watched the leopard clean it's claws on the bark of the trunk of a papaya tree ... something which a leopard always does right before it is about to attack it's prey .
As the leopard got closer to baboon and was roughly about 18 feet away from me , I raised my IOF 12 Bore DBBL gun to my shoulder . I had a small , but powerful flash light attached to the fore end of my shot gun , with a length of duct tape .
The leopard swiped the Baboon with the claws in it's right fore paw and in a single motion , the Baboon dropped to the ground ; lifeless . I could make out the disturbing sounds of the leopard gorging on the flesh of the Baboon , just as I flicked on my flash light and shine the beam on to the head of the monster . What I saw , was ( I must admit ) quite terrifying to me at the time . I saw a great , big pair of yellow eyes in a pitch black frame staring right at me . For a split second , I actually thought that the 2 eyes had popped out of no where and were just floating in the air , due to a super natural element. Was I facing some spectral entity from Hell , itself ?
However , I instantly realized that I was staring not at any super natural apparition , but rather at a BLACK PANTHER . ( I should add here that I was never even remotely superstitious at all , not did I ever believe in any super natural entities . )
I immediately fired my left barrel at the monster , aiming for the point behind his shoulder . My 1.25 ounce spherical lead ball definitely struck the Black Panther , as he gave a deafening roar and made off , right in the direction which he had come from . Did my bullet fail to find a vital organ in the monster ? I immediately leapt out of my hiding spot and folded open the breech of my IOF 12 Bore DBBL gun . I removed the empty cartridge casing from the breech of my left barrel and loaded in another fresh IOF 12 Bore " Ball" cartridge. I then gave pursuit to the monster . I was extremely terrified of what might happen if the Black Panther died a lingering death in the forest and it's corpse was found by Forest Department Officials . They would surely find the bullet wound on the monster's body and decipher that someone had attempted to poach this Black Panther . Then , it would not take them long to connect the dots and realize that the Black Panther was fleeing from the direction of the Jolpaiguri Tea Estate and that the son of the owner of Jolpaiguri Tea Estate was the license holder for an IOF 12 Bore DBBL gun .
Then , I would not only land myself a hefty prison sentence , but my parents would also suffer as a result of my actions .
I HAD to find that Black Panther as soon as possible , no matter what the cost .... "
Indian Ordinance Factories 12 Bore shot gun cartridges
