Rlys, forest blame game as calf among 3 jumbos mowed down by Jan Shatabdi in Jhargram

Jhargram/Kolkata: A male calf was among three elephants killed after they were hit by an allegedly speeding Barbil-Howrah Jan Shatabdi Express in the early hours of Friday near Jhargram's Manikpara. Rail services were paused for a few hours following the accident.

While local sources and activists say ‘hulla' parties had been driving away a herd of 20 elephants across the tracks when the accident took place, forest department denied this. The herd, sources claimed, was being driven towards Midnapore forest division. "While most were successfully sent to the other side, three (including an adult female and a sub-adult male) slowed down probably due to the presence of calf and were run over," alleged an activist.

SAGE Foundation's Sagnik Sengupta said the organisation had written to the chief wildlife warden demanding a probe into the alleged use of ‘hulla' parties. "Preliminary reports suggest that they were recklessly chasing the herd towards the tracks without any strategic coordination. This is the third instance since July 2023 when elephants have died in Jhargram due to unscientific handling of conflict," Sengupta added. Joydip Kundu of SHER also called for a probe.

Jhargram DFO Umar Imam said: "This area is known as Bashtola elephant route. Jumbos from Midnapore cross over to Jhargram from here and there's movement of elephants in the area throughout the year. At least 25 to 30 jumbos were roaming the area since Thursday. Twice or thrice a week, we communicate with railway officials about jumbo movement. This time, too, messages were shared with them on WhatsApp around 10.45pm on Thursday. However, it seems no speed limit was maintained. We have sought the speed logbook," he added.

Chief wildlife warden Sundeep Sundriyal seconded Imam's version. Forest department has also lodged a complaint of railway negligence in a Jhargram court.

South-Eastern Railway has initiated an inquiry into the incident. Senior SER officials said they were not adequately alerted about the movement of the elephant herd. "Only a casual WhatsApp text was dropped by a forest staff in a messaging group of forest, railway officials and wildlife enthusiasts around 11pm that three pachyderm herds were passing. The incident happened at 1am. It was too late to impose speed restrictions — so many trains were running on the section," a senior SER official said.

Another said, "The protocol is to inform the railways at least five or six hours in advance about such movement of elephants. Immediately steps would have been taken to run the trains on very slow speed. We will get to know what actually happened and with whom the fault lies, once the probe report in submitted."

Following the deaths, five elephants from the herd returned to the area in the morning. Forest department suspects the herd will return to the area searching for their companions.