KOCHI: The Kerala High Court is set to hear the plea against the forest department’s move to capture Arikomban, the rogue elephant of Anayirangal in Munnar, on Wednesday. The residents of Chinnakanal and Santhanpara panchayats are anxiously waiting for the court’s order.
Dr Arun Zachariah, who heads the Rapid Response Team (RRT) deployed to dart the elephant, said that preparations for the operation have been completed. “If the High Court gives the nod for capturing the elephant we will conduct a mock drill immediately. A 71-member team has been constituted for the operation of which 26 people are part of the RRT from Wayanad. We have been tracking the movement of Arikomban for the past few days,” he told TNIE.
On Monday, Arikomban returned to the forest, but then came back to human habitation and was found roaming around Cement Palam in Chinnakanal. The elephant was accompanied by a female elephant and two calves, according to villagers.
Chinnakanal panchayat president Saly Baby said they have impleaded in the case and are hopeful of a favourable verdict. “The elephant needs to be captured as people are afraid of venturing out of their homes. It is roaming the area and people are living in fear,” she said.
Conservation activists, on the other hand, believe that capturing Arikomban will not end the elephant menace, as other elephants will enter the area. They suggest that the 41 people belonging to 18 families in 301 Colony can be shifted to Vallakadavu or Chandramandalam in Marayoor, where revenue land is available. “If the 276 ha of land distributed to tribal people are converted into a sanctuary, it will reduce the man-elephant conflict in the area,” said conservation activist M N Jayachandran.
He said capturing and taming wild elephants amounts to cruelty towards animals. Besides, it brings a huge financial burden on the state. The forest department has 12 elephants of which seven are used as Kumkis. Sources said the maintenance cost of an elephant is `7 lakh per year.
301 Colony on elephant path
Sources told TNIE that a high-level meeting held on February 4, 2009, had decided to convert the 301 Colony into a sanctuary and shift the residents to Vallakadavu.
The meeting also decided to probe why the recommendations of former DFO of Munnar Prakriti Srivastava were overlooked. The minutes of the meeting, which have been accessed by TNIE, say that it was important to give only lands that were safe to the tribal people.
It said the 362 acres of land at Vallakadavu near Thekkady which is revenue land cultivated by the forest department since 1965 can be used for resettling the displaced tribals. To ensure that the mistakes of Chinnakanal are not repeated, a joint inspection should be conducted.
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“The files leading to the decision to allot land in Chinnakanal to tribals in 2003 should be examined to ascertain whether the forest department had pointed out that the area lay on elephant path and if yes, on what basis those objections were overruled,” said the minutes.