Why parents have stopped sleeping in this UP village

The fog drifted in late in the evening — and, like an unwanted guest, stayed on. By midnight, a wall of white had blinded Rasoolpur Darehta. It was around 4am when a sleepy Nankai Devi, feeding her three-year-old child, Ansh, in the verandah of her small home, caught an unusual stench and saw a pair of piercing eyes pull at the kid.

She recoiled in horror and screamed. For a few seconds, which seemed like forever, the mother and the beast were locked in a tug-of-war. The beast prevailed.
But Nankai didn’t give up. She kept screaming for help and ran after the creature that was fleeing with her child. The village, sleeping uneasily following a series of such incidents, sprung to action. The forest department patrol arrived shortly, joining in a desperate search of the wheat field, banana cluster, teak grove, and sugarcane thicket.

But, cruelly, the fog became the animal’s ally. The predator melted in the mist.