Foresters on Friday tranquilised an elephant that had entered East Budrwan’s Galsi from Bankura, and herded it towards the dense forest in Jhargram to avoid the repetition of Thursday’s incident in Jalpaiguri where a Madhyamik examinee was killed in an attack by a tusker.

“We did not take any chances as it was approaching human habitation where there was no forest at all. The animal could have created a nuisance and trouble for the common people and hundreds of Madhyamik examinees in those areas. We immediately decided to tranquilise the animal to prevent any untoward incident. Foresters in Bankura also helped our teams to manage the situation,” said Nisha Goswami, divisional forest officer of East Burdwan.

Two experienced teams of foresters headed by the divisional forest officer of Bankura North, Umar Imam, chased the elephant overnight to its habitat in Bankura.

“The elephant is quite different in its character compared to others in our division. We tried our best to return it to Bankura but it was approaching East Burdwan,” said Umar Imam, the Bankura north DFO who was present till the tranquilisation was over.

Burdwan district administration had promulgated Section 144 of the Crpc citing that groups of people could have come perilously close to the animal.

Arjun Das, 16, a Madhyamik examinee in Jalpaiguri died in an elephant attack on Thursday while he was on his way to the examination centre on a motorcycle travelling through Baikunthapur forest, a known elephant habitat.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her grief and concern over the death of the teenager, prompting the forest department to come up with an elaborate directive to officials asking them to help examinees ensure they did not take forest roads to reach examination centres. The directive was implemented in all districts hosting elephants from Friday.

Sources said the lone elephant got out of Bankura’s Barjora forest late on Thursday night and reached the military base camp in Panagarh. As soon as the information reached the forest department, several teams from Bankura and East Burdwan started chasing the elephant to send it back to Bankura.

However, they failed, as the pachyderm — which is known among the foresters as a fast-runner — started approaching the human habitat in Galsi where at least a hundred Madhyamik examinees were scheduled to write their English paper on Friday.

Sources in the forest department said foresters usually took at least a day’s time to decide to tranquilise an elephant. Sources said a pachyderm is usually tranquillized after several physical attempts to manage the animal failed.

“After the incident in Jalpaiguri, we could not take any chances. We talked to forest officers in Bankura to know its character. It is a known whimsical one among around 80 elephants residing in Bankura. It would be very tough to run away as the animal is a fast runner. So, we had to take the decision to tranquilise the elephant. It was good for both the elephant and local residents,” a senior forest official said.

The tranquilised elephant was taken to Beliatore range office in Bankura where doctors checked its health condition. After that, it was sent to a safe location in the Jhargram forests.

“The destination for the animal was chosen after a discussion with Jhargram foresters. We have also shared the character and habits of the elephant with our Jhargram counterpart so that the animal doesn’t face difficulties,” said Umar Imam, the Bankura north DFO.