People locked in their homes for 6 hours as elephant gets lost in Odisha town

The incident forced residents to remain indoors for over six hours until the jumbo was guided back to the forests by a team of forest officials and local police personnel.

“No one was injured. The animal, maybe out of panic, caused some minor damage like breaking iron grills and boundary walls of some homes,” said a forest official.

The jumbo first trespassed into a government school campus located in the middle of Baripada town, around 4 am. Though the school was closed for Makar Sankranti and the Srimandira Parikrama Prakalpa inauguration, students in the hostel started screaming out of fear.

The animal later entered the town after the forest department officials chased it away from the campus – videos showed it running around while people fled in fear.

This prompted the police to block all major roads and ask people to remain indoors for as long as the animal was in the marketplace. Police also used a public announcement system to appeal to people to remain indoors and not to instigate the animal by throwing stones.

When the tusker broke a boundary fencing wire, forest officials from Simlipal National Park, equipped with a tranquiliser, chased the jumbo and sent it back to the forests, divisional forest officer, Baripada, Santosh Joshi said. The forest department officials are closely monitoring its movement.