Rahul Gandhi Rushes to Wayanad Amid Escalating Human-Elephant Conflict

Following three weeks of wild elephant assaults in Kerala's Wayanad, Lok Sabha member Rahul Gandhi decided to leave the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Uttar Pradesh and go directly to his constituency, where there has been an increase in human-animal conflict.

Rahul touched down at Kannur airport late on Saturday night. Shamshad Marakkar, the head of the district Youth Congress and the Wayanad district panchayat, told The Telegraph that he will be visiting the victims' relatives in Wayanad on Sunday.


Following the most recent incident in which a wild elephant killed forest watcher V.P. Paul, hundreds of people came to the streets in Pulpally town, in the hill region, on Saturday to protest, disobeying an all-party shutdown call in honor of the deceased.

Paul, a 50-year-old temporary watcher with the Vana Samrakshana Samithi (Forest Protection Forum), a village-level organization that engages in participatory forest management, was paraded by the protestors. After considerable delay, Paul's burial took place later in the day.

When police and Samithi members attempted to calm the demonstrators, the demonstrators became aggressive and threw bottles at them.

Even after learning that chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan had called a high-level meeting on Tuesday to address the issue and that a ministerial team would be visiting them in two days, the protestors persisted. They even carried the carcass of a calf that had presumably been killed by a wild leopard that had strayed into Pulpally town.

Due to the ongoing tension, the district authorities imposed prohibition orders in Pulpally till Sunday.

An old Pulpally widow informed the local press that her son had lately been hurt while attempting to flee from a raging wild elephant.

After suffering injuries in an elephant assault late on Friday, a six-member Maoist gang abandoned their comrade Suresh, 48, at a tribal colony in Sreekantapuram, in the neighboring Kannur district, asking that he be sent to the hospital.

Protesters screamed anti-Congress chants at local Congress politicians, including Kalpetta MLA T. Siddique, while the administration generally did little to handle the issue.

Local parish priests and nuns joined the demonstration in Pulpally and remained there until the government promised a long-term resolution to the conflict between humans and animals, which has impacted the livelihoods and way of life of the locals.

Farmers have been complaining about how wildlife targets their cattle and raids their crops.

In order to prevent wild animals from entering cities and villages, the demonstrators requested impenetrable fence.

On February 10, a man called Ajeesh was killed by a wild elephant known as Belur Makhna that had wandered in from nearby Karnataka and barged into a residence in Mananthavady, Wayanad district.

The tusker was seen smashing through the steel gates on security camera video. 45-year-old Ajeesh stumbled and fell, and the elephant crushed him as the kids fled.

On January 30, Lakshmanan, a 55-year-old guard at a private plantation in Mananthavady, was murdered by another wild elephant.

A half-eaten calf corpse was discovered in Pulpally on Saturday as the demonstrations became more intense. Upon their arrival, forest authorities verified that the animal had been killed by a tiger.

Late on Saturday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan presided over a high-level meeting and directed that the earliest possible visits to Wayanad be made by Minister of Cooperatives M.B. Rajesh, Minister of Forests A.K. Saseendran, and Minister of Revenue K. Rajan.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Press Time staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.