Two adult elephants separated from a herd of 20, damaged a huge amount of crop lying in the stackyard (granary) in Nepura village of Lukaiya Panchayat under Tundi block during the wee hours of Sunday.

Nimai Mandal, a farmer who owned the stackyard said, “The residents of our village are living in a continuous state of fear due to elephant attacks. We came to know about the incident in the morning when we were informed about the damaged boundary wall of the stackyard and found crop worth more than Rs 20,000 lying damaged.”

“We informed the forest department officials in the morning about the elephant causing damage but the process of providing the compensation is too lengthy and frustrating,” charged Mandal.

Dhanbad divisional forest officer, Bimal Lakra said, “Our team, equipped with a vehicle, of more than a dozen torchmen are on the job in the area tracking the movement of the two elephants which are roaming in Tundi since the last ten days after reaching here from Nirsa.”

“Our main focus is to restrict the activity of the elephants in deep forests and avoid human-elephant contact,” said Lakra and added that the elephants reached here from Jamtara.

“The elephants in herd generally have a social kind of behaviour and rarely interfere in the villages but once separated they behave in a bit unpredictable manner,” said Lakra and added that tracking the movement of such elephants separated the herd is also a little difficult.

“Our team deployed in the area is in contact with the local villagers and rushes to site as it gets information and drives away the elephant to the forest areas,” said Lakra.

“We are also advising people not to obstruct in the movement of the elephants as generally, they walk during the night and take rest in the day time. We have also created some conducive situation in the deep forests of Tundi to ensure that the tuskers remain confined to the forest only and do not stray away towards the human habitation,” said Lakra and added that they have developed two check-dams in Tundi last year ahead of monsoon to ensure that the elephants get enough water for their consumption in the forest itself.

“Sometimes the herd reaches to the villages to find water in the ponds but the presence of sufficient water in the forest will help to avoid their movement towards villages,” explained Lakra.

Regarding the compensation, he said that it will be provided soon after submission of the form by the victim farmer and the verification of the claim made by our team.

Notably, one of the elephants also attacked Ravilal Marandi, a 71-year-old farmer in Laghata area of Nirsa block on November 6 causing serious injury to him while he was on a morning walk near the outskirts of the village.