LAKHIMPUR KHERI, April 19 -- A five-year-old boy was mauled to death by a leopard in an area with no previous record of big cat movement in the Dudhwa buffer zone on Saturday night, officials said.

The victim, Dilshad of Nayapurwa village under Singahi police limits, had accompanied his parents, Umed Ali and Nasimun, to the fields where they were working as labourers harvesting wheat. According to officials, the parents remained unaware of the attack while they were engaged in work. It was only in the evening, when they prepared to return home, that they realised their son was missing.

A search was launched by family members along with villagers in the surrounding fields. Dilshad's partially eaten body was recovered around midnight near...