The forest department in Bankura has cancelled Durga Puja leave for all employees, including senior officers, from Friday in a move aimed at managing 80-odd elephants that entered the district in herds from Dalma forest in Jharkhand.

The elephants have most recently been spotted in the Beliatore and Barjora regions of Bankura’s north forest division.

“It is not a cakewalk to manage 80 elephants at a time. We have to drive them away. We have cancelled Durga Puja leave of all our employees for better handling of the animals,” said Kalyan Rai, the divisional forest officer of Bankura (North).

Sources said DFO Rai, who was scheduled to be on Puja leave, had to cancel his plan.

Officials said there was also another herd of around 20 elephants on the way to Bankura and may enter the district any time.

Apart from the challenge to drive away such a huge number of elephants, foresters are worried about possible reasons that could have led such a large number of elephants to enter in small groups. Officials said there were at least four herds that had come from Jharkhand and interestingly, they chose Bankura in place of other Jungle Mahal districts like Jhargram, Purulia and pockets of West Midnapore.

A senior forest official said they suspected the reason behind the movement being recent flooding and heavy rains in terrains that elephants frequent.

“Usually, elephants from Jharkhand move to several parts of four Jungle Mahal districts. But this time, West Midnapore and Jhargram received the most rainfall during the rainy season. Elephants can’t move easily through silt or muddy land owing to their weight. This may have led them to turn towards Bankura,” said a forester.

All elephants entered Bankura through West Midnapore and Jhargram districts but proceeded directly to Bankura by crossing the Rupnarayan and Dwarakeswar rivers.

“Despite Bankura having received heavy rainfall a few days back, the water has fully drained owing to the laterite soil of the district,” he added.

The other theory is that the elephants had to wait to cross into Bengal as the rivers in Jungle Mahal were flowing above the danger-level due to heavy rain and release of water from several dams.

"The elephants always come by crossing rivers from Jharkhand. It is tough for them to cross the rivers if they are in spate. It may be that several herds had been waiting on the bank of a river in Jharkhand and crossed together as soon as the water level dropped," said a forester.

The forest department in Bankura has already issued a red-alert in pockets of Bankura’s Beliatore, where the elephants are residing now. Villagers in those pockets said that they are very worried as the elephants are raiding paddy fields and destroying crops.

“The paddy will ripen soon and green paddy is the favourite food for elephants. Earlier, there were one or two elephants that used to destroy small amounts of crops. We don’t know what happens if fields are raided by 80 elephants at a time,” said Biswarup Nayak, a villager from Jambedia village in Bankura’s Beliatore.

“It is another threat for us before the Pujas as it would be a threat for us to use the road through the forest to visit pandals in Barjora or Bankura town,” said Nayak.

“We have already formed teams and are trying to drive away the animals. We have to drive the herd away through the same route through which they came here. However, it is a time-consuming process as the number of elephants is high,” said Rai.