Silchar, July 30: Local residents are in a state of panic after a herd of wild elephants are roaming around in Hatikhira tea garden in Assam’s Karimganj district for the past few days.

The tea garden falls under Patharkandi Assembly constituency, around 98km from here.

According to a few locals, five elephants have been spotted in different areas around the tea garden recently and this has resulted in fear among them.

The jumbos, which come from Bangladesh through an unfenced and unmanned area of the India-Bangladesh border, around 10km from the tea garden, from time to time, had wreaked widespread devastation in the garden a number of times in the past too, locals said.

A resident said the elephants, which had gone on a rampage many times in and around the garden and in some other areas in the constituency, must be caught by the forest department and shifted to a protected place such as a national park or wildlife sanctuary.

The fear

The presence of the ferocious creatures has triggered apprehensions among the workers of the tea garden and many of them are afraid to go for work.

It will not be surprising if the elephants become violent and attack people as they have done these in the past too. “They should be caught at the earliest,” a resident appealed.

Another resident alleged that despite the matter being informed numerous times to the forest department, the department never took it seriously.

He blamed the department’s “careless” attitude for killing of villagers and destruction of houses and arable lands in Patharkandi over the years.

The loss

Sources said the jumbos had killed a woodcutter, Jagannath Balmikdas, 60, in a forest area at Indurail under Patharia forest range in February this year.

Indurail is around 1km from Hatikhira tea garden.

Five parts of the deceased’s body and some parts of his clothes lying here and there in the forest with stains of blood sight had given sleepless nights to the local residents.

Besides, Patharkandi constituency has witnessed at least three big attacks by jumbos since 2018.

Hundreds of bighas of paddy fields and other cultivable lands have been trampled, many houses destroyed and animals killed in the past few years.

No solution

Despite frequent activities by the jumbos, the authorities never came up with a long-term solution.

The Patharkandi forest department had tried various methods to ward off the jumbos in the past, but none
was fruitful.

The methods included farming of chilli and lemon in border areas (from where the jumbos reached residential areas and wreak havoc), artificial creation of sound of bees through a machine and distribution of fire-crackers among people to scare away elephants, but the methods did not bring about the desired results, the sources said.

An elderly person of Hatikhira said Hatikhira, whose etymology comes from two words Hati (means elephant) and Kira (means serpent in a Hindi-speaking community), has been witnessing elephant attacks for decades.

“From time to time, a herd of elephants stray out of jungle areas and carry out devastation in residential areas. Hatikhira is also famous for different species of serpents,” he said.

Patharkandi MLA Krishnendu Paul told NewsFileOnline on Thursday that he had brought the matter to the attention of Assam forest minister Parimal Suklabaidya several times in the past four years, but nothing
was done to resolve the problem.

The district forest officer, J. Ali, was also apprised about this a number of times, but he neither visited
the tea garden nor took any action.

“The DFO is interested only in pocketing money illegally through stone mining and transport,” he
alleged.

He termed the forest department a “total failure” in Karimganj district and expressed his fury over the forest minister for his alleged oblivious attitude despite being informed many times about the jumbos’ issue.

He added that he would raise the issue with all details in the next session of the Assam Assembly and draw the government’s attention so that the problem is solved permanently.

The DFO J. Ali and forest minister Parimal Suklabaidya were not available for their comments.