Andhra Pradesh - Tirupati   

Elephants go on a rampage once again

TIRUPATI: After a brief respite, the wild elephants are once again on a rampage in the central and western mandals of the Chittoor district which has been in the grip of the menace for the last two decades.

Besides plundering vast extents of paddy and sugarcane crops, mango and banana orchards, the stray pachyderms have even claimed quite a few lives by goring down people crossing their path.

The latest invasion, according to eye-witness is by a herd of eleven jumbos suspected to have sneaked into the Chittoor district forests from across the Tamil Nadu border.

The batch is said to have strayed into the Tekumanda thickets in the Bangarupalem mandal four days ago and has been marching across half a dozen forest fringe villages in the mandal gobbling up and rampaging sugarcane and paddy crop raised amid all odds by the farmers of the rain-shadow mandal.

Though straying of wild elephants into their villages and damaging their precious crops is nothing new for the people of the fringe villages of the western Chittoor, what surprised them is their bold invasion in broad daylight this time. Reports reaching here, said that the villagers found the herd returning to forests via the Gundrallagutta track in broad daylight on Tuesday after a overnight feast in the fields of half a dozen farmers of Tekumanda village. The daylight invasion by the tuskers is sending fear down the spines of the people of these far-flung fringe villages. “As most of us live close to our fields, we are literally spending sleepless nights not knowing when the jumbos would raid our habitats and go on a rampage,” the eyewitness said.

The DFO and Forest Rangers who reached the spot on being alerted by the villagers also expressed surprise over the daylight invasion by the wild elephants and promised action to goad them back into the Tamil Nadu forests with the help of trained ‘kunkies’ and trackers. Though the revenue officials also made a customary visit to the fields of the affected farmers, they are however sceptical about getting any timely relief package as the relief packages for the previous attacks were still due in some cases.

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