In July this year, a leopard strayed into a posh gated society in the Ghuma area of Ahmedabad city, keeping the neighbourhood on edge for a week. Nearly four months later, Serendeep Mansions has decided to etch the memory of the rare incident in a wall mural.

A week on edge in July

The fibre mural, showing a leopard crawling into the premises, has been installed at the same spot on a wall where the big cat was seen in footage from the society's surveillance cameras around 2 am on July 20.

Back then, a video of the leopard jumping over the boundary wall and crossing lanes of the society surfaced on social media and was widely viewed. The forest department swung into action with multiple teams and deployed thermal drones to rescue the big cat, which had vanished after spending a few minutes inside the upscale neighbourhood.

The leopard left the society premises in just seven minutes to exit into a vacant plot across the road. The plot had thick babool trees. The forest department continued its search in the surrounding areas, installing around five cages, for many days. However, it could not be rescued and is believed to have returned to its natural habitat.

The mural and how it was made

The society hired a professional wall artist, Paneri Shah, from Ahmedabad to create the mural near the club house. Paneri said that while the leopard had strayed into the society, the project made "it stay" there forever.

She elaborated on the process, which included sculpting the leopard in a clay structure with various details like its muscles designed by hand, making its mould and then casting the final structure in fibre.

"We have installed it at the same spot and position where the leopard was spotted. The mural has been made with fibre so that it becomes strong, lightweight and is durable outdoors for years," Paneri added.

Why the society wanted it permanent

President of the society's resident welfare association, Gaurang Shah, said, "We installed this wall mural of the leopard for two reasons. For Ahmedabad's city life, it was a rare incident for a leopard to stray into a society. Everybody in the society was terrified by the fact. But later, we wanted to make that date and moment memorable for all, forever."

"It was also to make it an iconic memory since our society's name had gone viral and it became famous because of that leopard," Shah said.

Serendeep Mansions is situated on VIP Road in Ghuma in the southwest part of Ahmedabad city. It is a housing society comprising 105 individual bungalows, the sizes of which vary from 350 square yards to 1,500 square yards.

Gujarat and its leopards

Pranav Pandya, a resident of the society, recalled that when the leopard was spotted and spent several minutes there, people panicked. "Later on, everybody regrouped and accepted that this could happen. Leopard is a shy animal and (people accepted that) we have to be careful," said Pandya, who is a co-founder and chairman of a software company in Ahmedabad.

"The moment of the leopard's entry into the society premises was captured on CCTV. And we (society residents) happily decided to replicate that moment in the mural," said Pandya.

Gujarat has the second highest leopard population in the country, and 2,274 of them were recorded in the previous census in 2023.