Birsa Munda Stadium, which played host to luminaries like Indira Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and lK Advani in the past, was on Saturday besieged by uninvited guests — a herd of wild elephants, striking panic in the steel city.
The herd of 11 wild elephants, including two calves and three tuskers, has been spreading panic in various areas of Kuarmunda and Bisra blocks in Sundargarh district since last week. After damaging houses and eating the crops in Kacharu, Kalosoria, Kantajore and Bartoli villages, the herd moved to Rourkela in the wee hours of Saturday.
According to Forest Department sources, the herd came from Jharkhand through Simdega and on Friday night it scaled the hill behind the National Institute of Technology (NIT) at Rourkela, triggering panic. A forest patrol team was deployed in the area to keep the elephants away from the hill and force the herd back into the forest. But as the herd turned towards the city, the patrol team had no alternative but to send it into the Birsa Munda Stadium premises.
“We were lucky that we were able to guide the herd into the stadium by daybreak or else there would have been disaster. Now the elephants are in the stadium and they are not likely to go anywhere soon as the herd generally does not move during day time”, Rourkela DFO Sanjeev Kumar said.
Even though the pachyderms did not harm anybody in the city, they did damage a wall, a few kiosks and three auto-rickshaws before crossing the Ring Road and reaching the stadium.
As the news of the event spread in the city, people started pouring in to catch a glimpse of the jumbos and soon the area around the stadium became jam-packed with visitors. However, despite their fascination with the animals, the residents are scared as they feel that the jumbos might stray into the city at any time.
DFO Kumar held an urgent meeting of forest officials of Kuarmunda, Biramitrapur, Bisra, Banki and Bonai divisions to develop a strategy to send the herd back to the Saranda jungle. Six expert forest officials from Jharkhand have also reached the city to assist safe passage of the herd to the Saranda jungle.
According to the DFO, the herd will be taken to Dumerta Station through Bondamunda and from there they would be sent into the Saranda forest on Sunday. According to wildlife experts, deforestation due to mining and industries and combing operation in different jungles are the principal causes for the jumbos straying out of their natural habitat.