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Herds of wild elephants have besieged scores of villages in West Bengal in search of food, and the conflict is taking its toll on human life and property.
About 100 villages under the Bankura, Midnapore and Purulia districts have been invaded by wild elephants that have been ravaging vegetable fields and banana plantations.
The elephants are emerging out of their natural habitat in the Dalma forest in the neighbouring Jharkhand state.
But panicky villagers are striking back. The conflict has left about 22 people dead since last year, while the forest department has come across evidence of several elephants being poisoned by angry villagers.
The problem is fast acquiring a serious dimension as residents of Sonamukhi and Khatra in Bankura district, Mukutmanipur range in Purulia district and the Rupnarayanpur range in Midnapore district are on the verge of fleeing their homes.
The most aggressive of the several herds roaming the three districts is terrorising the residents of the Kakrajhor area of Midnapore. All efforts by local forest department workers to scare away this herd of about 20 elephants have failed.
The herd is reportedly attacking people who disturb them. Other herds have descended on the neighbouring districts of Purulia and Bankura in search of food.
Forest officials have linked this courage of the pachyderms to their growing familiarity with human civilisation and the fast diminishing foliage of the Dalma forest.
Initially, about a dozen of these gentle giants used to come and they could be scared away without much effort. But food scarcity is making them desperate, experts say.
Forest department sources told Indo-Asian News Service that the government is constructing a high wire fence along the Kangsabati river, which separates the state from the Dalma forest. The elephants usually swim across the river to reach the villages of West Bengal.
Indo-Asian News Service
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