A man in Karnataka’s Hassan district killed a leopard with
his bare hands in a bid to save himself and his family, after the animal leaped
out of bush and charged at him, his wife and their child. Rajagopal Naik, a
resident of Bendekere village in Karnataka’s Arasikere taluk, about 180 kilometres
from Bengaluru, was riding back home when the incident occurred.

The leopard initially attacked the child, and then
subsequently tried to attack his wife. Reportedly, Rajagopal at this moment held
the animal by its neck and hit it on its head. The leopard, though taking a few
swipes at Rajagopal a few times, could not succeed as it gradually died of
suffocation due to him tightening his grip around its neck, as per various
media reports.

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Reportedly, a huge mass of people gathered in a short while
around Rajagopal and the slain leopard, with netizens likening the man to ‘Drishyam
2’ protagonist George Kutty.

In a viral tweet on Twitter, Rajagopal is seen sitting in a
bloody, devastated state on the ground as the dead animal lies beside him.

“100% it is Leopard. This is a classic example of man-animal
conflict”, said a reply on the thread of the main tweet.

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Another user, meanwhile, cast his doubt on the incident,
saying, “Cheetahs became extinct in India some 50 years ago”.

Whatever the case, the fact that the family narrowly escaped
a sad fate is quite certain.