Kerala: Forest officials tranquilise wild tusker 'Arikomban'

The task force sedated the elephant on Saturday under Dr. Arun Zachariah's direction.

Idukki: According to the latest reports, the wild tusker 'Arikomban' was tranquilized by a special task force on Saturday. The elephant will be captured and relocated to the Periyar tiger reserve once it loses consciousness.

For the operation, a task force of 150 people was deployed in the Chinnakanal region. The task force sedated the elephant on Saturday under Dr. Arun Zachariah's direction. On Saturday, the Forest Department group resumed its mission after temporarily suspending Operation Arikomban on Friday.

The task force tranquilized the elephant on Saturday morning by luring it to the 301 colony area with crackers from a hilltop. Forest officials said the tusker could not be tranquilized in the challenging terrain.

The elephant was spotted by forest watchers at 6 pm near a stream at Sankarapandyan mettu on Friday. The distance from Cement Palam, where tusker Chakkakomban was spotted on Friday, is 8 kilometres. Later in the evening, according to officials, Arikomban moved from Shankarapandya Mettu to 301 colony.

The curfew imposed in Chinnakanal panchayat and wards 1, 2 and 3 of Shanthanpara continued on Saturday.

After a month-long court fight, the Kerala government on Friday began the mission to sedate and relocate the infamous rice-eating tusker known as "Arikomban," which has been terrorizing locals of Chinnakanal and Santhanpara panchayats for years. The mission to catch and transfer the elephant has been assigned to more than one hundred authorities from the Forest Department, the KSEB, the Fire and Rescue Department, and the Health Department, among others. 

The Kerala High Court had on April 19 directed the expert panel appointed by it and the state government to take a final decision by May 3 on the alternative site suggested by the Forest department for translocating the 'Arikomban'. 

The court was hearing a PIL by two animal rights groups -- People for Animals (PFA), Trivandrum Chapter and the Walking Eye Foundation for Animal Advocacy -- opposing the government's decision to keep the elephant in captivity and train it to become a kumki elephant.