Wildlife officials tranquilised a leopard inside the premises of a Maruti Suzuki plant in Manesar on Friday, almost 36 hours after it was first spotted.

The big cat was seen at 1.45pm on Friday by the officials who were monitoring CCTV cameras in the plant. The team then rushed to the Engine Plant where leopard was tranquillised at 2.06pm.

“It will take 20-30 minutes for the leopard to calm down. The team members saw the leopard in CCTV footage and grabbed the opportunity to fire the tranquiliser at it,” said Vinod Kumar, conservator of wildlife, south Haryana.

Once the animal clams down, the wildlife team will rescue it and remove it from the plant, the officials said. “We will examine its condition before releasing it back into its natural habitat,” said R Anand, divisional forest department, Gurgaon.

The big cat, which was caught on a CCTV camera several times, could not be traced or captured despite a 24-hour combing operation by the wildlife department.

The Manesar plant, which is 20km from Gurgaon, is one of the biggest manufacturing plants of the automobile firm. The production plant, spread across 600 acres, manufactures an average 5,000 petrol and diesel engines per day. The production had been stalled for over 24 hours now at the plant.

The area is close to the Aravalli hills and it is suspected that the big cat could have strayed from the forest area.