MUZAFFARABAD: A leopard mauled to death an eight-year-old girl after straying into a residential area of a border village in Jhelum Valley district of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Saturday, police said.

The incident occurred in Pandu Nalai, a village situated near the Line of Control (LoC), some 15 kilometres from the town and Chinari and 65 kilometres from Muzaffarabad.

According to Abdul Waheed, an official at the Chinari police station, Javeria, a second-grade student and daughter of Ghulam Mustafa Awan, was playing in the courtyard of her home when the predator suddenly attacked and dragged her away.

Alarmed by her sudden disappearance, family members and neighbours launched a frantic search and scoured the surrounding fields and wooded areas for over three hours. Eventually, they found her lifeless body in dense shrubs about half a kilometre away.

`The leopard had reportedly bitten her neck, drained her blood and then left the body in the bushes before disappearing into the nearby forest,` the official said.

The horrifying attack has left the entire community in shock, forcing many villagers to remain indoors out of fear of another possible encounter with the wild animal.

Funeral prayers for Javeria will be held in Nalai at 11am on Sunday. Tariq Naqash