The third death in wild elephant attacks in Kerala’s Wayanad in three weeks has prompted its Lok Sabha member Rahul Gandhi to take time off the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Uttar Pradesh and rush to his constituency where human-animal conflict has escalated recently.

Late on Saturday evening, Rahul landed at Kannur airport. Wayanad district panchayat president and district Youth Congress president Shamshad Marakkar told The Telegraph: “He will be in Wayanad tomorrow (Sunday) and will visit the families of the victims.”

The latest incident of a wild elephant killing forest watcher V.P. Paul led to a massive protest in Pulpally town in the hill district on Saturday with thousands of people hitting the streets ignoring an all-party shutdown call to mourn the death.

The protesters paraded the body of 50-year-old Paul, a temporary watcher with the Vana Samrakshana Samithi (Forest Protection Forum), a village-level body operating under participatory forest management. Paul’s funeral was held later in the afternoon after much delay.

The protesters turned violent and flung bottles at policemen and members of the Samithi who tried to
pacify them.

The protesters even carried the carcass of a calf killed apparently by a wild leopard that strayed into Pulpally town and were unrelenting even after being told that chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan had called a high-level meeting on Tuesday to address the problem and a ministerial team would visit them in two days.

The district authorities enforced prohibitory orders in Pulpally till Sunday in view of the prevailing tension.

An elderly woman in Pulpally told the local media that her son was injured as he tried to escape from a rampaging wild elephant recently.

A six-member Maoist group left one of their comrades named Suresh, 48, in a tribal colony in Sreekantapuram, in neighbouring Kannur district, with a request to take him to hospital after he sustained injuries in an elephant attack late on Friday.

Local Congress leaders, including Kalpetta MLA T. Siddique, faced the brunt of the protesters who shouted slogans against them and the general administrative
apathy in addressing
the situation.

Priests and nuns from the local parishes joined the protest in Pulpally and refused to budge without an assurance from the government of a permanent solution to the human-animal conflict that has affected the lives and livelihood of the local people.

Farmers have been lamenting how wild animals raid their crops and
target livestock.

The protesters demanded foolproof fencing to stop wild animals from getting into villages and towns.

A wild elephant identified as Belur Makhna had strayed in from neighbouring Karnataka and stormed into a house in Mananthavady in
Wayanad district on February 10, killing a man
named Ajeesh.

Security camera footage showed the tusker breaking down the steel gates. While the children ran to safety, the elephant trampled 45-year-old Ajeesh who had tripped
and fallen.

Another wild elephant had killed Lakshmanan, 55, a guard at a private plantation in Mananthavady on
January 30.

As the protests intensified on Saturday, a half-eaten carcass of a calf was found in Pulpally. Forest officials who visited the spot confirmed it was killed by a tiger.

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan chaired a high-level meeting late on Saturday and assigned forest minister A.K. Saseendran, revenue minister K. Rajan and minister of cooperatives M.B. Rajesh to visit Wayanad at the earliest.