A massive hunt is on to capture a leopard, which killed a 75-year-old woman at a village in the wee hours of Saturday on the forest fringe in Karnataka's Ramanagara district, the police said.

"A team of forest officials and guards launched a search during the day to spot the leopard in the Turuvekere forest range after it killed a woman at Kotteganahalli village on its fringe and disappeared," sub-inspector N. Suresh said. Turuvekere forest is around 125 km northwest of Bengaluru.

"The leopard appears to have killed the old woman before dawn and dragged her body behind the hutment 200-metre away. The victim's body and her disfigured head were found separated at the spot," Suresh added.

The victim's grandson, who woke up to find the old lady missing, was horrified when he found her bruised body away from their hutment and alerted the police, as the big cat's pug marks indicated that it went into the forest after killing the woman.

"The forest team will resume the hunt on Sunday morning to trace the feline after it called off the search in the evening at sunset," added Suresh.

This is the second such incident reported in a week. On May 9, a three and half year old boy was killed by a leopard around 4 km away from Kotteganahalli in Kaderanapalya.

A press release issued by the Karnataka government's Information and Public Relations Department asked residents to stay alert and stay indoors until the leopard is caught. 

"To stop the movement of leopard in Ramangara district's Magadi taluk a forest department team is working and residents are asked to be alert and indoors. The information about the leopard will be updated in a daily bulletin," the release said. 

The incident comes two days after a leopard was spotted near the divider of an underpass road near Hyderabad in Telangana on Thursday.

With IANS inputs