MISSION SUCCESSFUL: The tranquillised elephant is surrounded by trained elephants at the end of Operation Drona on Monday afternoon.

HASSAN: At last, Operation Drona has ended. The wild elephant that killed two persons, injured more than 25 persons and destroyed crops in fields in and around Doddabetta, Nagavara and surrounding villages was finally trapped by sharpshooter Venkatesh, who shot at the elephant with Etaphin Fluoride, a tranquilliser.

The five-day operation came to an end on Monday noon, when the people were celebrating Makara Sankramana (Pongal), and the elephant was caught in the presence of hundreds of villagers.

However, there was an anti-climax when villagers charged that the elephant trapped was not the wild elephant but another one, and they would not allow its transportation. Forest Department personnel who brought a lorry to transport the elephant to Bhadra forest could not load the elephant into the vehicle. Viswanath, MLA, pleaded with the villagers to allow the Forest Department personnel to take the elephant to the forest as the latter were convinced that the captured animal was the one that had killed two persons. The special team that had been camping in Magge-Rayakoppalu villages in Alur taluk on the border of Doddabetta in Kodagu district succeeded in trapping the wild elephant at Nagawar, deep in the Doddabetta hills, at 11.30 a.m.

When the rogue elephant fell unconscious, six trained elephants surrounded it. When it regained consciousness at noon, the elephants brought it to the roadside.

Villagers demanded that the other elephants moving around in the forest also be trapped.

But the Forest Department personnel said they had permission to trap only this wild elephant. Dasara elephants Drona, Balarama, Abhimanyu, Arjun, Srirama and Gajendra took part in the operation.

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