In Gujarat’s Amreli, a bedroom behind bars 

Every night, as he falls into the village of Japodar in the Amreli region of Gujarat, Bharatbhai Baraiya (30) uses five of his six of his six of his children into an iron cage of 8×6 meters-surrounded by a small bedrooms on the one hand, Tarpaulin layers and cement blocks in other two people.

For the widow farmer, this “Human Cage” is the only defense against cynical leopards that follow the rented farm and turn their lives into a war to survive. “This cage is our shield, Mr. Mr. Baraiya says. “I lost my wife to illness; I can’t lose my children to wild animals.”

For months, the family slept behind the metal bars, their bodies met in a thin bed, floating for the button thieves of the big cats hiding the ears.

“This area is close to the Gır National Park and often see lions, they are not a threat. When a lion approaches, we can perceive its existence – roar, their movements are noticed and do not attack most people. But leopers are different. They attack quietly and prefer small or young living beings like five daughters,” he said.

In November last year, Mr. Baraiya’s wife, Bhavani, died in a hospital in Rajula, a nearby town, and died while giving birth to his sixth children. Now, Bhavani’s parents are looking at the baby.

A month later, while struggling to balance his farm work by raising his daughters – especially at night, he had to irrigate plants and protect them from Nilgais and wild pigs, while providing their children to protect their children from the leopards – he put forward the idea of building a cage to keep their children safe.

“This house is almost like a cattle hut. Not made with suitable construction blocks, cement blocks are simply stacked and no door. Thus, I bought iron bars and grids from Rajula and rented a local craftsman to bring them together. It cost 9,000.

He added that his house was lying along a regular leopard trail and that he climbed one or two leopards almost every day and sat on the Banyan tree just outside their homes.

The 2023 wildlife census recorded 2,274 leopars in the region and showed a significant increase in its population. Only in the Amreli region, the number increased significantly from the previous 105 issue to 126 in 2023. The number must have increased significantly after the last census.

The tenant farmer initially remembered that there were three puppies on the farm, but they all disappeared in a few weeks. “That’s when I started to notice the symptoms of leopard activity and I became awake,” he said. “After my wife passed away, my eldest daughter had a night when 10 -year -old Sobhana saw a leopard. He was so scared that he refused to go out during the day. Then I realized that I had no choice but to find this idea.”

At night, when children need to go out occasionally, they are always accompanied by Mr. Baraiya or brother -in -law.