Three forest employees injured in jumbo attack

Three forest employees were injured, one of them seriously, when a wild elephant strayed into Ambari area, in the outskirts of Siliguri town.
A forest official said the jumbo attacked the three forest personnel yesterday when they tried to ward it off towards the jungle.
The three were taken to a private hospital in Sligiri and one was in ICCU as his condition was critical, the official said.
West Bengal Forest Minister Binoy Krishna Burman visited the area and said the injured will be given compensation.
He said elephants were straying into localities as people are encroaching upon their habitat and the authorities were setting up consciousness camp in villages.

"Making the Ministry of Tribal Affairs the nodal agency
for the FRA was a welcome acknowledgement that the majority of forest lands are ancestral tribal lands.
"However, due to a lack of support to the poorly-staffed Ministry and state tribal welfare departments, resistance and non-cooperation by forest departments and a lack of coordination between ministries, the revolutionary potential of the FRA remains untapped," Madhu Sarin, a member of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity, claimed.