Laden. Picture by Main Uddin Chisti

Dinhata, Aug. 10: Laden has been caught and exiled.

The four-legged menace — dubbed Laden by the people of the town — was known for its penchant for charging at people without rhyme or reason.

So when the ox was captured after daylong efforts by a group of 20 men hired by the district administration, the town heaved a collective sigh of relief. The unruly beast was tied up in sacks and packed off to the Adabarighat forest, 20km away, in a pick-up truck.

“For the past five years, Laden had been terrorising the people of this town and we in the municipality had been bombarded with requests to get rid of it,” said Ranjit Saha, a Forward Bloc councillor of the municipality here.

Despite repeated requests by the people to the police, the animal resources department and the civic body, Laden could not be trapped.

“The people from Stationpara had approached us a few days ago complaining that the ox’s antics were becoming unbearable. It had of late taken to chasing schoolchildren, entering eateries and even tilting its horns at rickshaw-vans and school buses. So we decided to capture it,” said Moni Kumar Ghalay, the joint block development officer of Dinhata.

The animal had in fact chased Saha a few years ago, while he was returning home in a rickshaw.

“It charged and overturned the vehicle,” recalled Saha, happy to see the back of the animal today.

All its antics, however, were not steeped in humour. “Haripada Majumdar, an old man, was killed after the ox butted him a month ago,” said Partha Debnath, a resident of Ward 13.