Assam officials in Dhaka to bring back elephant

GUWAHATI: A three-member team from Assam reached Dhaka on Wednesday evening to bring back a wild elephant that was swept away to Bangladesh by the swirling Brahmaputra waters last month.

HT Image

Assam forest officials said that the adult female elephant is stranded on a sandbar, or river island, in Kurigram district of Bangladesh. The animal was first spotted on the Brahmaputra at Chandrapur near Guwahati.

A National Disaster Response Force team had tried to rescue the animal before it drifted away, eventually taking refuge on the sandbar about 400km east of Guwahati. “We will decide on how to bring it back after reaching Dhaka today,” retired conservator of forest, Ritesh Bhattacharyya, told HT from aboard the Maitree Express before it chugged into Bangladesh in the morning.

The Maitree Express, running six days a week, is the only passenger train between Kolkata and Dhaka. Gede is the stop on the Indian side for immigration check. Assam forest officials believe the elephant is from the Kaziranga National Park.