Bengaluru, Jun 23 (IANS): An incident of a leopard being killed for preying on a pet dog was reported from the Kootanuru village near Bandipur in Karnataka's Chamarajanagar district on Friday. The forest authorities have arrested the culprit.

The arrested person was identified as Ramesh, a farm labourer from Mallayyanapura village. The accused was remanded to judicial custody. The forest authorities had found the body of the leopard at the agricultural field belonging to landlord G.R. Govindaraju.

The authorities after investigating the case nabbed Ramesh. The probe revealed that four days ago, the three-year-old female leopard had killed Ramesh's pet dog. He had an emotional bondage with the dog as it grew up with him.

Enraged by this, Ramesh located the place where the leopard had left the partially eaten body of his pet dog and poured pesticide on it. The leopard returned after some time and ate the remaining part after which it died. The forest authorities conducted the autopsy of the leopard and burnt the body.