Dart guns, cranes fail as killer elephant in West Singhbhum slips past 300 foresters, enters Odisha

Jamshedpur: The rogue elephant, which is on a rampage in the West Singhbum district of the Kolhan division, killed two more persons even as more than 300 foresters armed with dart guns, power-charged guns, sticks, binoculars and walkie-talkies made a strong bid to tranquillize and capture the jumbo on Friday.Meanwhile, the total number of victims of this rogue elephant, believed to be in musth and separated from its herd, since the start of the year till Jan 9 has touched 19. Another 10 people were injured. In the last 23 days, the state has also witnessed 27 deaths caused by elephants.Forest officials said that it was the first time in the last four days that the killer jumbo had come close to being captured on Friday. After disappearing for a day on Thursday, the ‘speedster’ jumbo, as it was being described by forest officials, managed to give slip to the well-trained foresters, most of the specialist trackers from different states, and strayed into the Jashipur forest area falling in the Keonjhar forest division in neighbouring Odisha, forest officials here said late on Friday.For long hours since morning, the forest guards, quick response teams (QRTs), rangers, divisional forest officers, besides the experts from the Vantara Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre (VRRC), WildlifeSOS, wildlife rescue teams from Odisha, Bengal and adjoining Seraikela-Kharsawan district made efforts to capture the frenzied elephant.Boarding six heavy earth-moving machines and two separate cranes, the foresters made three attempts to capture the elephant after they surrounded it, but every time a tranquillizer dart was fired, the elephant dodged and turned furious.The foresters exhausted their time and energy chasing the rogue tusker around the 30 sq-km radius of the Benisagar forest, which is located in Majhgaon block of West Singhbhum district on the Jharkhand-Odisha border.In one such attempt to capture the elephant, Sukhlal Behera, a forester of the Bengal wildlife rescue squad, came close to the pachyderm and suffered injuries when it hit him forcefully with its trunk, making him fall. Behera, who narrowly escaped death, is currently admitted to a govt hospital in Odisha.The regional chief conservator of forests (RCCF), Kolhan division, Smita Prakash, said, “Equipped with heavy-duty LED torches and lights, the whole team of the foresters are still camping at the site as there’s a strong possibility of the tusker straying back into the Kolhan area.”Early on Friday, the frenzied elephant trampled to death a 40-year-old villager and a minor boy at Kherpal village under the Hatgamharia police station limits of the Majhgaon block. The duo became victims when a heavy crowd turned out and came close to the elephant while it was running on the fields in the Ghodbanda-Kherpal stretch of Benisagar forest limits.A senior forester, who is part of the operation, said crowd management was an uphill task, forcing them to call additional police police. “The unwanted crowd delayed and made the capture attempts a failure as taking care of people’s safety became the utmost priority for us,” he said. “Even when there was a possibility of capturing the elephant on a few occasions, scores of villagers surrounded the forest area, yelling and screaming at it, making it more furious,” he added.Sensing a further threat to human lives, the foresters temporarily prohibited the movement of vehicles along the NH320-D, connecting Jharkhand to Odisha through Majhgaon at the moment, a source said. Besides, residents of about 10 villages in the vicinity have been advised to move to safer places for the time being.