Biswabrata Goswami
MIDNAPORE, 27 FEB: Scary encounters with wild elephants in the forest stretches of Junglemahal districts are common these days. But when a lone elephant separated from its herd sneaked into the residential town, man-animal conflict reaches a bizarre proportion where hundreds of residents are seen chasing the pachyderm and taking photographs in hopes to grab the moments.
On Thursday night, an elephant entered into Midnapore town after crossing Kangsabati river. On looking the elephant at Dharma, hundreds of youths started chasing it and it eventually entered inside the premises of Midnapore college. As the elephant could not recognize the exit route after being chased by hundreds of residents along with police and forest officials, it finally hid inside Midnapore Medical College and Hospital premises. To see the elephant, scores of people also thronged inside the hospital premises.
Police officials were seen perplexed to control the crowd. They had to alert the people. But, IC, Kotwali Partha Sarathi Pal slapped a journalist, Sovon Das of a reputed news channel and restricted him to cover the incident.
Later, forest and police officials surrounded the area and the elephant was later tranquilized by forest officials.
Chief Conservator of Forests of Western Circle, A P Singh said, “After tranquilizing the elephant, it was loaded in a truck with a help of a crane. The elephant was then transported to the Arabari forest where it will be kept under observation. After that, it will be released. No causalities and damages were happened during tranquilization”.