NUAPADA : In yet another incident of man-animal conflict over living space, a bear strayed into a boys hostel of an industrial training institute (ITI) at Mundagaon in Nuapada district early on Friday morning. The ITI is located in Ward 2 under Khariar NAC. Inmates of the hostel evacuated the premises soon after the incident.
A student of the ITI, Nitish Kumar Rana unlocked gate of the hostel at 5 am to see the bear running inside the campus and hiding in shrubs behind the hostel. Nitish raised an alarm and all the inmates evacuated the hostel but in the commotion, the bear entered into the hostel building, informed Principal of the ITI, Chandra Sekhar Tripathy.
Forest Ranger, Khariar Road, Basudeb Adbong said they had been tipped about bear roaming the area since last month. However, they had failed to spot it or track it till the animal was spotted in the hostel.
Around 6.45 pm, the animal ran back into the Saliha forest, about 12 kms from the ITI. Locals believe that the bear could have strayed in search of drinking water to the water body adjacent to the hostel from Saliha forest.