To ensure the safety of his children from the hunting leopards around his area, a farmer from the Japodar village of Amreli, Bharat Bariya, has taken the cupboard logic to a different level. In an attempt to makeshift sleep through the night without having nightmares, lastly to come up with ingenious way, he has turned his 8x6 foot iron cage into a bedroom for himself and his six children. Permitting them to escape in comfort, restricted under iron bars.

When we got here, there were three puppies in the field. It is at this point I observed the leopard's incessant movement in the region, Bariya is quoted as saying in a Times of India report. ‘One day, my daughters posed a question. What happens if a leopard ate them? That inquiry rattled me deeply. And so, I set out to build that cage where even now we sleep together. ’

Bariya, who is from Bakodar village of Amreli, had taken a field on rent in Japodar, which has a fair amount of lion and leopard population. As per the census of 2023, the region has 2274 leopards, and Amreli has increased from 105 in 2016 to 126 in 2023. Due to leopards preying on farm workers and their families in the countryside surrounding villages, Bariya became worried about his children.

"Lions are distinct in their ways. There is a single roar that you can hear daily and their movement is easily sensed,” shared Bariya. “However, the leopards? They attack and kill silently, and their preference is targeting the young ones."

"My offspring's safety is something that I constantly obsess over," he further added. “The shack that we have built at the field is not robust enough to insure their safety. Besides me, after losing their mother, I am all they have in this world. There is a high chance that my parents are suffering from deafness and even though my sister in law helps me with children, the threat still persists."

One night while watering his field, an idea struck him, ‘Cages are a need’. "So, I traveled to Rajula and bought iron grills and rods alongside hiring a professional craftsman. He was tasked with building a large single cage so powerful that it could compete with the forest department’s leopards traps."

The cage has since become their nightly refuge. With the addition of the large iron cage, if Bariya has to step out to water the field, his sister-in-law stays with the children in the cage. During the night, the children that frequently require getting outside, are always taken outside by an adult. The close proximity of the leopards to the cage has on multiple occasions, further increased the sense of danger within the family.