Asom: This 'Ganesh' is not adored

Guwahati, Apr 26: He uproots bettlenut trees at one punt, razes down thatched hovels or even solid walls at ease and smashes exploding crackers and burning twigs with its feet.

'Ganesh', the robust 9-tonne tusker, has been a constant source of terror to the inhabitants in and around the Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary in Jorhat district of upper Asom.

The only succor to the people of this range is that Ganesh has never attacked a human directly.

This is not withstanding that wild pachyderms have taken at least four human lives besides injuring over a dozen in the last 15 years in this range of the district.

''Perhaps it was a tamed elephant earlier, and so it has not harmed a human directly nor is it afraid of crackers and burning torches. In fact, it smashes the exploding crackers and burning twigs - used to chase elephants away - with its feet,'' Ranger of Mariani Range K K Saikia said.

The 20-year-old jumbo has created more menace than nearly 35 other elephants inhabiting the range.

'' It is frequently spotted in the human-inhabited areas, especially Katonibari, Meleng and Duklingia. The people are perturbed by the damages inflicted by this tusker, and they have specially requested to translocate this tusker,'' Mr Saikia said.

Interestingly, Ganesh has no elephant friend and moves about alone, while the rest of the pachyderms in the area are spotted in herds.

A couple of weeks back, the Ranger was forced to fire shots on the tusker's back from a double barrel gun to chase away the tusker when it razed down a series of houses in Katonibari area, adjacent to the Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary.

The Ranger informed that he has proposed to the Forest Department to translocate this particular tusker immediately.

''It can be tranquilized and taken in a train boggie. Once it is taken away, the elephant menace in the area will come down considerably,'' Mr Saikia, apparently fed-up of the frequent complaints received from the people regarding the trouble-shooter jumbo, said.

Man-elephant conflict has taken its toll in the area. Frequent reports of pachyderms damaging crops, uprootings fences and houses have kept the forest officials in a tizzy. Besides lack of fodder in the forest areas, another reason for the growing invasions of the elephants in the human-inhabited areas has been identified as increasing number of country liquor dens in the villages, the smell of which lures the pachyderms, foresters said.

UNI