A male panther aged 8-10 years old, strayed into the city from the thick forests of probably the Seetanagaram-Prathipadu areas in the early hours of Tuesday. It was first noticed in the early hours at about 12.30 am on Tuesday by one of the staff at the Central Prison as it jumped the compound wall and gained entry into the open air jail premises. The panic stricken staffer alerted forest officials immediately. The panther entered the tall grass and hid there for a while between 3 am and 3.30 am as it was surrounded by a pack of street dogs. Locals say that they heard dogs barking continuously for some time at that time. The panther managed to escape from there and entered a residential area. The animal was spotted again at about 4.40 am near Chaitanya hospital and vanished. The panther surfaced at a house at Lalitanagar. He entered a house and disturbed utensils in the house. When the inmates got up and raised an alarm, it escaped and entered the house of G. Venkateswara Rao in the same locality. The animal jumped the compound wall and was resting near the bathroom. The housewife, Ms G. Uma, woke up in the morning and wanted to go to the bathroom. She spotted the panther at about 5.40 am near the bathroom and alerted her relatives. Her relative Krishna rushed to the house and found that the animal had entered the bathroom. He closed the door, trapping the panther inside. The news spread like wildfire and a large number of people started arriving at the house to spot the animal. Police faced a tough time to control the surging crowd. Meanwhile, forest authorities alerted veterinary doctor Srinivas and his team at the Indira Gandhi Zoological Park in Visakhapatnam. The team arrived and gave a first shot of a cocktail of anaesthesia. The animal, weighing nearly 60 kgs, pulled out the tranquilliser shot from his foreleg with his mouth. After waiting for 20 minutes, the team gave a second shot and the panther slowly lay down. It was kept in a cage and taken to the Technology Dissemination Centre of the forest department at Kakinada and was given an antidote within an hour-and-a-half of the first dose of anaesthesia. He recovered and slowly became active. Forest authorities are taking the panther for releasing it in the Maredumilli forests of the Rampachodavaram Agency when the last reports came in.