A team of foresters who had been to a village near the Gorumara National Park in Jalpaiguri following an elephant depredation was gheraoed by the residents for three hours on Friday.
The team led by Rajkumar Layak, the Khunia forest range officer, was detained, along with some elected representatives of rural bodies. The villagers demanded a specific assurance that a watchtower be erected by the state forest department to monitor the movement of elephant herds.
“Wild elephants often intrude into our village and damage crops, plants and houses. Last night, a herd entered the village and damaged around 1,000 betel nut trees, along with some crops which were ready for harvest,” said Bimal Oraon, a resident of Purba Batabari in the Matialli block.
“We had time and again demanded that a watchtower be built outside the village and it be manned by forest guards so that they can alert us to elephant movements. As there had been no development, we decided to detain the forest team,” he added.
According to Oraon, around 10,000 residents of Purba Batabari and the neighbouring Kharia Bandar regularly lose their crops to the marauding elephants.
Hasibur Rehman, the president of the Purba Batabari Joint Forest Management Committee, said though the villagers had started alternative farming — cultivation of agricultural products which elephants usually do not consume, they could not succeed because of frequent depredations.
“We need the watchtower and regular patrolling by forest teams in our area so that the herds can be stopped,” he said.
The protests, which started at 11am, continued for three hours. The representatives of the local panchayat samiti and foresters assured the agitators that the issue would be discussed at a meeting to be held on Saturday.
“The villagers were aggrieved over the issue and confined us. A meeting has been convened to discuss the proposals. Elected representatives of the local panchayat and the panchayat samiti would be present at the meeting with the villagers,” Layak, the range officer, said.
