Jamshedpur, April 17 : In a shocking incident, a wild elephant parted ways from a herd of tuskers strayed into the residential areas and destroyed houses and killed bovines in the wee hours of Monday.
The wild jumbos hailing from Chandil forest destroyed two houses and as many four-wheelers, beside killing four bovines, including a calf at Tamolia.
Forest department officials tried to drive the herd of elephants from at a hillock in Dobo, just 3 Kms away from Tamolia.
The residents of Kapali, Gaushnagar and Islamnagar are gripped in panic because they feel that the same elephant which ransacked a portion of Tamolia may stray into their locality which is very close in the night.
Chandil forest range officer, CN Tripathy confirmed about the presence of an elephant herd near human habitate close to Mango.
” We are investigating the incident. We have managed to drive the elephant to a jungle in adjoining Sundarnagar with the help of out team,” said the official.
The range officer went on to say that around midnight the elephants had arrived close to Kapali, but as the local residents had mobilised, the elephants could not enter into the human habits.
“As we received the information, a team of forest department officials arrived at the spot and successfully drove all the elephants from near Kapali toward the hillock in Dobo, about 2Kms away. But one of the elephants had parted from the herd and strayed into Tamolia where it was on a rampaging spree,” said the range officer.The house which the lone tusker damaged belonged to one Manoj Kumar Yadav, a small time businessman.
People are in state of havoc due to such menace. �We are forced to spend sleepless nights. Our lives are at risk due to rampaging elephants. Elephants regularly venture into villages, destroy houses, damage standing crops and even trample people to death.
We are forced to work like a �night guard� to save our lives,� said a resident.
He said that rampaging elephants are a cause of concern. Some measures have been adopted and there is need to do more to protect the people.
The local farmers have been asked to inform the nearest range office in case of crop raiding so that special teams will be deputed to drive the elephants into the deep jungle.
