Howrah elephants reach Purulia forest 32 hours after being darted

KOLKATA/HOWRAH/PURULIA: Two sub-adult tuskers, who were tranquillized on Tuesday afternoon in Howrah’s Purba Islampur village, barely 20km from state secretariat Nabanna, were finally put up on two trucks on Wednesday morning and sent off for Purulia, along with foresters.
Both the elephants reached the forest of Burigora on Jharkhand border, another 20km from Bandwan, on Wednesday night.They will be released in the forest in a few hours.

The rescue operation that lasted for almost 24 hours saw participation of more than 100 forest workers, including hulla party members, tranquillizing experts and NGO workers. State’s chief wildlife warden Ravi Kant Sinha said the elephants were fine.
An abandoned betel leaf plantation, where the elephants were darted, was 700m-800m from the main road. “We arranged for payloaders and tractors in the wee hours of Wednesday. With those, a temporary road was dug that led us to the main road, where the two trucks waited,” said Somnath Sarkar, divisional forest officer, Howrah. “The road was dug by 10am on Thursday, after which the tuskers were loaded on two tractors that took them to the trucks. . Finally, the foresters left with the tuskers for Prulia around 11am,” said Suvrajyoti Chatterjee of NGO Human and Environment Alliance League. An official said all the while, they administered controlled dosage of sedatives to the tuskers as several hours had passed since foresters had managed to tranquillize them around 2pm on Tuesday.
Asked if Section 144 of CrPC, a must in such a case, was imposed as more than 1,000 villagers had gathered on both Tuesday and Wednesday, Sarkar said it was not needed. “The villagers were curious as they saw elephants in this region for the first time, but they never behaved in a violent manner. They cooperated with us,” he added.
A villager pointed out the foresters knew the plantation, where the jumbos were hiding, was far from the main road. “They should have arranged for payloaders and tractors before the rescue operation,” he added. But a senior forester said they took time as this was the first time that wild elephants were seen in the region. “Still, we manged to mobilise staff from nearby divisions, such as Kharagpur, West Midnapore and Rupnarayan,” he said.