Elephant herd creates panic in Palamaner

Palamaner: Fear gripped among people of Palamaner town after a herd of 26 wild elephants was spotted on Wednesday.

The elephants entered the town and passed through habitations and stayed some time at Radha Bunglow in the town.

Later, they moved towards Palamaner Cheruvu area where they lolled their trunks for more than two hours roaming around Bommidodla, Neellakunta and Court complex areas. They had more than one-hour playful time in water at Neellakunta.

The locals said the elephants' herd might have entered in wee hours and public spotted them around 6 am at Radha Bunglow area where more than 1,000 families are living.

After receiving information, Forest Department officials and staff along with crackers bursting team reached the place and fired crackers to drive the herd towards forest. Enroute forest, one pachyderm hit hard a cow tied at a house with its trunk at Bodireddy Palli resulting in its instaneous death.

However, the forest staff were succeeded in driving the pachyderms into forest from habitation. West Division Forest Officer Ravi said these herd came to AP forest areas from neighbouring Kolar district of Karnataka and Gudiyatham of Tamil Nadu areas few months back and they did not return.

The jumbos habituated to the taste of crops cultivated by the villagers was the main reason for not going back to their places, he explained and added that they will strengthen the trenches and fencing on border forest areas to prevent the entry of elephants into habitations from forest.

But the locals lamented that the officials keep on harping the same story every time the jumbos entered into the habitations leaving massive destruction of crops. They said the officials were utterly failed in preventing elephants' entry into habitations.