A range forest officer (RFO) locked himself in a cage and entered a 100-ft-deep dry well to check whether a leopard had fallen into the well in southern India's Karnataka.

The incident took place at Karapura village in Heggadadevana Kote taluk of Mysuru district on July 17.

According to reports, the locals in the area called the forest department officers alerting them of a leopard stranded inside a dry well.

A team of officials, including Nagarahole Tiger Reserve director D Mahesh Kumar and Antharasanthe RFO Siddaraju, rushed to the spot to assess the situation and rescue the animal.

The team tried to trace the leopard by lowering a camera along with a torch using rope inside the well, however, no visuals of the big cat were recorded.

"Our cameras did not get any visuals of the leopard, neither did we hear any noises from inside the well," Siddaraju told Newslions Media.

Following this, RFO Siddaraju decided to enter the well himself and rescue the animal.

A metal cage was brought to the spot by the forest staff and he got inside with a torch and a mobile phone.

However, after several attempts, Siddaraju failed to spot the leopard inside the well.

"The breadth of the cage is similar to the radius of the well. My cage was closed from two sides with opaque metal cover. Looking through the other two sides, I couldn't spot the feline and was pulled back up," he said.

On July 17 evening, the team informed the villagers that there was no leopard inside the well.

Forest staffers returned to the office around 8 pm but again they were summoned after villagers sighted the big cat.

This time the team heard noises from inside the well.

Investigating further with torches, they finally spotted the feline ducked on the floor.

The team spent the whole night arranging for ladders, trap net and cameras to get a better view of the animal and rescue it.

The same night they lowered a bowl of water inside the well presuming that the feline would be thirsty after spending days without drinking.

On July 18, the forest officials covered the ground of the well with a trap net hoping to lure the leopard onto it and haul the animal out.

Meanwhile, the officials rigged the well with special cameras to get live updates from the well.

The video shows the leopard crouched one-feet-above the ground inside a small cave-like structure.

"Now we are waiting for the leopard to climb into the net so that we can pull it out. We have placed a piece of meat on the trap net to bait the animal onto it," Siddaraju said.

On July 20 evening, at around 5:30 PM the leopard was successfully rescued by the forest team.

An official, identified as Akram, went into the well inside a cage and sedated the big cat using a tranquilizer gun.

Following this, the leopard was hauled out of the well inside the trap net and transferred to a vehicle.

The video shows a group of officials grabbing the sedated feline and carrying it to the vehicle.

The leopard was administered for medical injuries and was released into the forest on July 21 at around 10 AM.

The video further shows a few men sitting on the vehicle and raising the trap gate.

The leopard scurries out of the cage and darts into the forest.

Sources suggest there are three abandoned dry wells in the village.

There has been a demand from the villagers from the past few years to the Gram Panchayat to close the well with metal mesh so that no human and animal fall inside.