AHMEDABAD: A lion attack in Garajiya village of Bhavnagar district’s Palitana taluka on Monday left a Maldhari injured after he was pinned to the ground by a lioness for nearly half an hour.A video of the incident, which has gone viral on social media, shows the rare and tense moments when the victim remained trapped beneath the animal while trying to stay calm to save his life.According to villagers, the subadultlion attacked Maldhari Kalu Parmar outside his house after first moving through the village and reportedly confronting another resident. During the attack, the lioness knocked Parmar to the ground and held him down by placing one of her forelegs across his body. Instead of repeatedly biting him, the animal largely remained seated over him, occasionally gripping his arm while preventing him from getting up.The viral footage shows Parmar making no sudden movements and gently patting the lioness in what appeared to be an instinctive attempt to keep it calm. Villagers surrounded the spot, shouting and throwing stones in repeated attempts to drive the animal away, but the lioness refused to move for several minutes.Meanwhile, the video shows that it was two lions, while the other one was seen moving in the house which was of Parmar.“I was going to feed my cattle when the lioness suddenly attacked me from behind and pulled me down. She caught hold of my hand and did not let me go for a long time,” Parmar said in a local media interview. He was first taken to the Palitana Govt Hospital before being shifted to Sir T Hospital in Bhavnagar for specialised treatment.Earlier in the morning, villagers claimed the lioness had entered the residential area and charged towards him after leaving his buffalo. “A buffalo came in between another resident and the lion and that is how the villager and his mother survived,” he claimed.Residents alleged that they had repeatedly alerted the forest department about frequent lion movement in the village over the past several years and demanded immediate measures to prevent such encounters.Pradip Ghodakiya, the Range Forest officer, Talaja, Bhavnagar, said that the lion entered the village, and people came out on the streets.This disturbed the big cat.As a result, Parmar, who was close to the lion, was caught. He has only suffered injuries of the nail of the lion.The lion has not attacked him with the teeth.Chirag Amin, the deputy Conservator of Forest, said that “The village is a regular habitat of the lion in village as it in Palitana Habitat. The lion has been identified and team with tranquilising guns are in the area to capture the lion.”
