A wild elephant killed three persons in Nawada, Bihar, on Thursday.
The elephant stoked panic among people and sent official into a tizzy as they launched an operation to either direct it towards the jungle or capture it.
“Three persons have been so far killed by the elephant that has come from Koderma district in neighbouring Jharkhand. It is moving across the countryside and our senior administrative and forest department officials are engaged in efforts to control it,” Nawada district magistrate Yash Pal Meena told The Telegraph.
Meena, who himself was moving in the area where the wild pachyderm was on the loose, said a team from the Patna zoo was on its way to Nawada with tranquillising equipment to tame the elephant.
The three people, including a retired teacher, who died, were lifted and flung to the ground by the elephant before being trampled. They all had gone for some work towards the agricultural fields in the Nardiganj, Hisua and Sitamadi areas.
Nawada district forest officer Awadhesh Kumar Ojha said the elephant on rampage “seems to have been thrown out of its group over some mischief.” “We will try to tranquillise it, but our task is being made more difficult by the unruly people who are further disturbing the wild animal,” Ojha said.
Officials said a large mob was pursuing the elephant all around, trying to make videos and click selfies. They were making so much noise that the animal was running in the wrong directions instead of picking up the route back to its habitat.
A large police posse was unsuccessfully trying to keep the people away from the wild pachyderm, which was moving fast across farms, villages and rocky terrain of the district.
“It is the people who are behaving wildly. Even the mild use of force is not proving effective on them. They are taking the arrival of the elephant as a big entertainment event and distracting it with their antics,” a senior official said.
Sources said the tranquillising operation might be done on Friday as conducting it during the night could be risky.
