Wild elephants invaded Duli Maharani’s home when she was having labour pain, forcing her to climb on a tree and deliver her baby in machan on 2 March. A resident of Goddaran village in Jharkhand’s Dumka district, Duli and her baby somehow survived. But Rangi Rani of neighbouring Renudih village was not so lucky. Chased by the elephants in labour pain, Rangi too climbed on a tree to deliver her baby on 18 February. But her little one died for want of proper medical attention.

Over 300 hundred men and women have taken shelter on trees, living in perpetual terror with the elephants on rampage in the villages of three tribal-dominated block of Dumka district, a fact-finding team of the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties has said. The villagers have built machans with hay and bamboo on tree-top to protect themselves from the marauding elephants which had been targeting over 50 villages spread over in Gopikandar, Ghasipur, Patharkata and Nishchitpur blocks in Dumka regularly for the last six months.

Besides Duli Maharani and Rangi Rani, according to the PUCL’s findings, four women including Sunita Maharani, Lakhi Soren, Ratani Maharani and Silvanti Tuddu have been forced to deliver their babies on trees. And having chased out by elephants, about a dozen women have aborted their babies so far. The wild elephants have destroyed thousands of huts of Santhal and Paharia tribals living in the villages of Gopikandar, Ghasipur, Patharkata and Nishchitpur blocks. Seething in anger at the administration’s failure to provide them relief from the ‘killer’ elephants, the villagers indulged in arson and violence at a forest department’s office at Kathikunda. But instead of helping them out, forest officials have lodged FIRs against the villagers, according to the PUCL’s findings.

A PUCL’s senior office bearer, Mr Sashibhushan, told that the affected villagers at their meeting recently adopted a resolution demanding compensation for the loss of their lives and property caused by the wild elephants which of late have proliferated in the jungle of Dumka. The regional sabha (committee) of the tribals have sent a copy of their resolution to the President, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, the Prime Minister, Mr AB Vajpayee and the Jharkhand chief minister and Chief Justice of the Jharkhand High Court.

But the affected people haven’t received any words of comfort from any quarters so far.

Nalin Verma
The author is The Statesman’s Patna-based Special Representative.