A herd of elephants entered into villages and stirred up violence in the hillock areas of Paterwar block in Bokaro district last night.
Amid the looming fear people residing mostly in those areas are now forced to spend sleepless nights. The farmers are worried as the elephant menace is on the rise in the region.The terror of the herds of elephants still continues in these areas since past few days as the rowdy tuskers ransacked several houses, boundary walls and destroyed crops last night in Chando, Bhaski, Soanpura, Roria, Jumra, Pari, Jaram including other surrounding villages.
The rampage jumbos ransacked the house and boundary walls of Bhatu Singh, Doman Singh of Sonpudr Village, Fagun Manjhi, Mandn Manjhi under Dumerdih village, Kailash Nayak, Suresh Rajak, Krishnakant Nayak, Prabhakar Singh, Diwaker Singh, Sanjeet and Bhuneshwar Nayak under Chando village; the herd destroyed their crops too.
They said the herd has caused extensive damage to their crops and that this was a regular occurrence. “The elephants damaged our houses, broke our granaries and ate our paddy”, said the villagers.
The Jumbos also destroyed our crops and houses said Laldeo Manjhi, Ramnath Manjhi, Ramjeet Manjhi and Rame Manjhi of Kojram Village.
The shrinking forest and dried-up water resources forced elephants to raid the farmlands as well as villages. In search of water and food herd migrated form Purulia to Bokaro and Ranghar district in Jharkhand, said a forest official.
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