JOIN USFinally, palace jumbos chip in to nab tusker
Though, the police were alerted about the pachyderms entry to city at about 5.15 am, the operation to nab the tusker began at around 7 am after senior forest officials arrived on the spot mobilising the support from the Zoo, the Mandya forest circle and with all the preparedness. It was a challenging operation for the authorities as the wild jumbo strayed into residential areas in city.
After a five-hour long operation, the tusker was cornered in the Dhobhi Ghat area off Kukkarhalli lake road and adjacent to Saraswathipuram. It took about more than an hour for the elephant to be sedated and fall unconscious after forest officials shot four doses of tranquilisers into its body.
Immediately after the tusker became inactive in the groves in the Dhobi Ghat, the jumbos owned by scion of royal family Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar were summoned to keep the tusker calm, during the nabbing operation and when forest department personnel tied it with a rope.
Before the tusker could be nabbed, it gave a miss everytime.
The tusker which got separated from a female elephant near bamboo bazaar early in the morning ran amuck to enter the Dewan’s road.
After killing a security guard near the Bank of Maharashtra ATM on Narayana Shastry Road, the tusker ran towards Devaraja Urs road junction and entered the Maharani’s NTMS college, where the forest officials injected the first tranquilliser.
As the tranquilliser did not yield any effect, the elephant came out of the college premises only to move towards the Institution of Engineers and Oval grounds. A large crowd of people gathered surrounding these areas which panicked the animal.
The jumbo then moved to the Maharaja college grounds and took towards Saraswathipuram.
It strayed into the JSS Women’s college creating panic among students who had begun to arrive. It was here that the pachyderm received two more tranquilisers, even as it moved to Dhobi Ghat.