Chandaka elephants sneak into Kalinga Studio

Bhubaneswar, May 4 (UNI) The Kalinga Studio on the outskirt of the capital city has some unusual guests this morning -- a herd of elephants, which sneaked into the campus late last night causing panic among the members of a film unit busy in shooting.

The forest officials, who had been trekking the movement of the elephant herd, however, swung into action and forced the film unit to suspend the shooting as a preventive measure to avoid any untoward incident.

It took several hours for the forest officials keeping a track of the movement of the herd to chase them out of the Kalinga studio campus before the sun set and allow the film unit to resume the shooting.

But in the process a forest guard was injured as the elephant herd, irritated over the press photographers clicking flash, attacked the forest guard.

He was immediately shifted to a local hospital.

According to Range Officer Pranab Mohanty, the herd comprising four elephants had entered into the Kalinga studio last night and took shelter in a small forest inside the campus.

This was not the first occasion that the elephants from the nearby Chandaka elephant sanctuary had entered into the studio. Two months back also a herd of elephants had entered but they were chased back to their habitat by the forest officials.

UNI