Mumbai, Jan 27 (IANS): Barely 24 hours after a prowling leopard was trapped alive, an eight-year-old boy was mauled to death by a wildcat in Goregaon late Saturday, police said here Sunday.

The incident happened Saturday evening when the victim, Saurabh T. Yadav was playing with his friends in Adarsh Nagar, bordering the thick forests of Aarey Milk Colony in Goregaon east of north-west Mumbai.

Suddenly, a leopard leaped out and attacked Saurabh even as his shocked friends managed to escape and alert the family and police.

After more than two hours search by the Forest Department and police rescue team, the boy's mangled remains was found in the deep jungles, nearly a kilometre away, an official said.

The incident happened barely hours after a prowling leopard was trapped in a cage by the Forest Department and later released into the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP).

On Jan 6, a 25-year-old woman, who had gone to a community tap to fill water pots, was attacked by a leopard but survived with serious injuries.

According to officials, a total of eight people have been killed in leopard attacks so far in different areas in the neighbourhood of the SGNP in the past seven months.

Leopards are routinely sighted around the approximately 95 sq.km. SGNP boundary, which borders some of the most thickly populated human colonies in Andheri, Goregaon, Malad, Kandivli, Borivli, Dahisar, Thane, Mulund, Bhandup, Vikhroli and the Ghodbunder Road.