COIMBATORE: Two anti-poaching watchers suffered serious injuries in an elephant attack in suburbs of Coimbatore on Wednesday night. They were involved in a driving operation to chase the elephant back into the woods from human habitat.
The angry pachyderm struck at the anti-poaching (AP) watchers, first attacking 30-year-old Saravanan, with its tusk when he was part of a team to drive back the jumbo into the forests, past midnight on Wednesday.
The elephant turned berserk as it sought TO trample upon Saravanan. When another AP watcher, 46-year-old Vijayakumar, went running towards the elephant in a bid to divert its attention to rescue his colleague, the angry pachyderm charged on the latter too.
According to forest officials, the four-year-old jumbo came down from Western Ghats entered Arivozhi Nagar near Kovaipudhur on Wednesday night.
Around 9 pm, the pachyderm crossed over the road median in the busy Palakkad-Coimbatore highways road, triggering panic.
Motorists passing through that stretch stopped their vehicle seeing the elephant from there to PK Pudhur near Kuniyamuthoor and remained in a human habitat. Many residents, seeing the jumbo moving around, ran to the safety of their homes and bolted from the inside.
On information, a team of Forest department staff came to the spot, burst crackers and lighted fire torches, to drive the pachyderm back into the woods after a long struggle.
However, the same elephant returned to the human habitat after few hours on Wednesday midnight, while the two anti-poaching watchers initially made a feverish attempt to chase it back into the woods, but in vain.
Seeing this, the other AP watchers hurled stones on the elephant, burst crackers and continuously chased the animal into the woods.
Both the injured AP watchers were taken to a private hospital near Peelamedu, where they are under treatment, sources said on Thursday.
In a similar incident, a 40-year-old brick kiln worker Moorthi along with his wife and child had a lucky escape on Wednesday night, when a lone elephant forcibly entered his house in search of food in Kuttaivazhi near Chinnathadagam in city suburbs.
