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Tamil Nadu: Over 600 students forced to stay inside hostels after elephant herd enters university

Coimbatore: As soon as the tuskers reached the campus area, the students were asked not to venture out of the hostel buildings. The herd of eight jumbos didn't leave the area till Friday morning.

Mirror Now Digital

Updated Oct 1, 2022, 06:50 IST

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Coimbatore: More than 600 students of Coimbatore's Bharathiar University were forced to stay inside their hostels since Thursday evening after a herd of elephants roamed into the campus premises. The herd of eight jumbos didn't leave the area till Friday morning, reports said.

According to Vice-Chancellor of Bharathiar University P Kaliraj, it was around 4:00 PM on Thursday that the elephant herd entered the university. The Forest department staff soon reached the campus and started taking the necessary steps to drive the animals out. It reportedly took the officials the entire night to force the elephants out of the university. The herd left the campus around 8:00 AM on Friday, The New Indian Express (TNIE) said in a report.

As soon as the tuskers reached the campus area, the students were asked not to venture out of the hostel buildings. More than 600 students, who reside at the university hostel, were thus forced to stay indoors, the daily said.

The University Vice-Chancellor reportedly said tuskers are frequent visitors to the campus as Bharathiar University is located in an elephant corridor. Increased vigil is the only option in hand, he added.

“Since the university is in an elephant corridor, elephant movement cannot be prevented. However, we have asked the forest department to mount vigil in the area. Elephant movement is frequent on campus. We have instructed students to be wary of elephant intrusions,” he was quoted as saying by the TNIE report.

Elephant corridors are linear, natural habitat linkages that allow elephants to move between secure habitats without being disturbed. According to the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) website, there are 101 such corridors across the country.

After they were chased out of the campus, the herd strayed into the nearby village of Somayampalayam where they spend Friday night. The residents of the village alleged that acres of crops were damaged by the herd, the report said.

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