The attack left Sanjay Gubbi with bite marks on his leg. He is due for a surgery.
It is a video that has gone viral on the internet but the man who is seen attacked by a leopard, biologist Sanjay Gubbi in Bengaluru says he is glad he was attacked.
Recovering in a hospital and waiting for a surgery on Saturday, Mr Gubbi told NDTV's Agenda, "Imagine the mother watching on TV, her son getting attacked. I am trained to handle such situations and if it hadn't attacked me, the leopard may have gotten out of the campus and attacked others. So I am glad (it did)," he says.
The attack left him with bite marks on his leg but officials told NDTV that the leopard was missing a canine tooth and so the attack was not as bad as it could have been.
Mr Gubbi is a trained professional who was called in by the wildlife department to handle the trap for the leopard spotted inside Vibgyor School on Sunday. The conservationist, who has worked in similar situations for the last two decades, had asked for reinforcements and a few procedures to be put in place but that did not happen.
"I asked for Section 144 to be imposed (to stop people from crowding the school where the leopard was trapped), fire personnel, ambulance," he told NDTV. He was concerned about the tranquilised leopard drowning in the pool and had even asked for it to be emptied.
What upsets him most is that media teams were also present which added to the commotion and alarmed the leopard. "I was trying to tell them to move out but that's when leopard came in and caused the commotion," he recalls.
Crowding the area where a big cat is or bringing in the cameras only makes the animal more dangerous, he cautions.