Palakkad: Three wild elephants returning to the forest

Palakkad: The three wild tuskers from Malampuzha forest which reached the residential areas on Monday and travelled nearly 20 kilometres to the  Thrissur border areas near Bharathapuzha have  started going back to the forest. With the involvement of forest guards and a large posse of local police, crackers were blasted during the day which made them traverse nearly 15 km  from Bharathapuzha towards the north. On Thursday night,  they crossed the crucial Palakkad-Ottapalam railway line near Mankara railway station here and fire torches were  being lit by the cops and guards to direct them to the forest at night.

According to Mankara police, the pachyderms,  including two tuskers and a calf tusker,  were  expected to reach the forest by tracing back the track they have travelled to reach Bharathapuzha.     They may  pass through Mankurissi, Mundur, Olavakkode, Aarangottukulambu, Kanjikkodu and Walayar before reaching the Malampuzha forest. These tuskers had caused trouble to the residents of Mangottukurissi last week and it took the forest guards of Alathur range and the local police a whole day to direct them back to the forest again. 

But, on Monday,  two tuskers and the calf  threw out of gear the normal lives of nearly 100 residents in Peringottukurissi by entering their paddy fields and premises of their houses. After one night, they reached Bharathapuzha on Tuesday morning. Though there were plans to bring specially trained Kumki elephants from Tamil Nadu,  the forest officials dropped such a plan as  12 such elephants were needed to direct the wild tuskers to the forest again.