A 14-member team of elephant-drivers has arrived at the troubled Chandil forest region to drive away a herd of elephants that killed a local mahout in the area on Wednesday night.

Haricharan Mahato, a 45-year-old mahout was killed while his associate, the 40-year-old Durga Charan Mahato was seriously injured as one of the elephants of a five-elephant herd attacked them near Balidih village on Wednesday.

The herd once again entered the human settlement near Balidih village to destroy a mud-house partially on Friday night, after they hid in a nearby jungle following the killing of the mahout on Wednesday. This led the Forest Department to bring in the Bankura-based elephant drivers, who are considered experts at the job, after a team of local elephant drivers abandoned its job and fled in view of their leader’s death.

Revealing the development, Forest Range Officer, Chandil, Ashok Kumar said that they had to bring in the mahouts from Bankura as the people of Dhunaburu and Balidih villagers were frightened after the marauding elephant herd attacked the local elephant driver.

"The villagers were so frightened that they did not come out of their homes and refrained from bursting crackers on getting to know about the invasion of the elephant herd in the human habitat. As a result of it, the herd partially destroyed a mud-house at Balidih village, but fortunately no loss of life took place," Kumar said while talking to The Telegraph Online.

He informed that the Bankura-based team started off with their job on Friday night itself after it arrived in the evening, although they planned to start work on elephant driving from Saturday evening.

He also revealed that the locals were provided with an adequate number of crackers by the Forest Department for driving away the elephants.

"The cracker is provided to the villagers for driving the elephants when they try to enter the village, but they tend to burst them at the sight of the elephants in the paddy fields with the crops grown up which are situated a little away from the village. On being exposed to the cracker bursting, the elephants get excited and irritated, and subsequently attack the cracker-bursters. The villagers tend to burst the crackers when the herd is still away from the village, because they want to save their paddy crops from getting destroyed by the invading herd," elaborated the officer.

The team from Bankura will drive the elephant herd either toward Tamar in Ranchi district or to the adjoining Seraikela jungle in the Seraikela-Kharsawan, from where the herd is supposed to have come.