Elephant which attacked villagers to be moved to enclosure

The captured elephant had become violent a week ago after a jumbo accompanying it was electrocuted near a village in Jabalpur district which borders Mandla, officials said.The elephant had chased villagers and injured two of them in the thickets of Mandla, they added.

Forest officials in Madhya Pradesh on Monday launched an operation to transport a wild elephant, which had injured two villagers, to a kraal in the Kanha Tiger Reserve (KTR) a day after capturing the animal. The tusker was captured while it was wandering in the core area of the tiger reserve, KTR field director SK Singh told PTI.

He said efforts are on to transport the bull pachyderm to the Kisli area of KTR where a kraal has been set up for the mammal. A crane has reached the spot in KTR where the elephant was captured on Sunday to facilitate the operation, Singh added.

Pench Tiger Reserve's field director Vikram Singh Parihar, who oversaw the capturing of the jumbo, is also monitoring its shifting to KTRs elephant camp area, he said. The captured elephant had become violent a week ago after a jumbo accompanying it was electrocuted near a village in Jabalpur district which borders Mandla, officials said.

The elephant had chased villagers and injured two of them in the thickets of Mandla, they added. The pachyderms, including the dead one, had entered here from Balaghat, a district on the Chhattisgarh border, around two-and-a-half years ago, they said.