Killer wild tusker eludes special teams for second day

Pandalur Makhana 2 (PM2), a wild tusker that killed a woman besides injuring two others by bringing down their house in Devala in Nilgiris district, is still eluding the special teams of the Tamil Nadu forest department.

Sources in the forest department told IANS that four special teams are search for the elephant since Tuesday morning. The teams were constituted after a high-level meeting of forest department officials decided to capture PM2 and relocate it deep into the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve.

Forest officials told IANS that the tusker might have crossed the Kerala border through the elephant pathway in Gudalur, and mingled with a herd of wild elephants.

The forest officials held a meeting at Gene Pool in Nadugani on Tuesday, in which officials from Gudalur, Pandalur and Nadungani ranges were present. The meeting decided to constitute one more team of forest officials to carry out search operation from Wednesday.

The elephant had damaged several houses in Devala and Pandalur regions in the past two years and has been a habitual troublemaker for the local people. Forest officials have also deployed two Kumki elephants to trace and capture PM2, but it has remained elusive.

A senior forest official in Gudalur told IANS, "Most probably the tusker is in Kerala now with a herd of elephants. We are expecting it to return to the Gudalur range on Wednesday or Thursday so that we can capture it and relocate it in the deep forests."