Locals thwart bid to chase away jumbos (India)

Author(s)

Times of India

Date Published
ROURKELA: With locals stalling movement of elephants, who have stayed put near Vedvyas Temple here since Sunday morning, forest officers are having a hard time.
 
Forest officers launched the drive to chase away the herd of 10 elephants on Sunday night. But as soon as the pachyderms reached NH-143, a group of villagers blocked the road. Four attempts to drive away the herd through different route met with similar resistance. The elephants are back in the same locality.
 
“All our attempts to drive away the elephants into dense forest failed with villagers adamant on not allowing the herd to pass through their locality,” said divisional forest officer (DFO) Sanjit Kumar. “We tried to convince the villagers to allow passage to the elephants, but they did not relent,” he added.
 
The forest officers held a series of meetings here on Monday and asked range officers to convince locals to cooperate with them in the operation.