Bengaluru: A wild elephant attacked workers, who were asphalting roads in the safari area in Bannerghatta’s Biological Park, on Tuesday morning. The incident occurred around about 9.30 am when a group of workers was busy doing a patch work of roads inside the forest area adjacent to the Bannerghatta National Park. An elephant attacked the two workers, while the others escaped.
The two workers, Maheshwari, 20, and Nagamma, 50, were injured and were rushed to Sanjay Gandhi Hospital, where their condition is said to be stable. Three others also got injured while running away from the spot, said Mr Sunil Panwar, Deputy Conservator of Forests, Bannerghatta National Park.
The workers were from Raichur and were unaware of the movement of wild animals in forests. “The patch of road they were working on is an elephant corridor and during these months, wild elephants come towards the National Park area where captive elephants are kept. The wild elephants come in search of captive elephants for mating,” said Mr Panwar. “This is an isolated incident and fortunately there was no loss of lives,” he said.
“The tender of asphalting the roads has been given to contractor Arun Kumar, and he had sent his labourers to carry out the repair work. The contractor is attending to the injured at the hospital,” said Mr Range Gowda, Executive Director, Bannerghatta Biological Park.
