A leopard's skeleton was found around 3 km from the Bandhwari landfill in Gurugram on Friday, forest officials said.

The forest officials said that it is very difficult to determine the gender of the animal from the skeleton, which is believed to be a month old and has been taken into custody by the wildlife officials.

The officials also ruled out the possibility of poaching or the animal consuming toxic water owing to leachate seepage from the landfill site, leading to its death.

"An autopsy will be conducted to ascertain the exact cause of death. We suspect that it could be a natural death because of the position in which the body was found... it's like the animal was lying and could not get up due to old age and died," said district wildlife inspector, Rajesh Chahal.

The official said they are probing the matter from all possible angles.

"The body was found far away from the Bandhwari landfill site. There are several clean water bodies situated between the landfill site and the spot where the body was found," he said. [IANS/JS]