Bhubaneswar, May 5: At least eight persons, including a forest guard, were injured after a bear that strayed into the area attacked them in the early hours of the morning.

The incident took place in Titilagarh town of Balangir district, around 500km from here.

Panic gripped the town as residents spotted the animal early in the morning in a mango orchard in the thickly populated ward No. 12 area. After playing hide and seek with residents, who tried to chase the animal away, the bear made its way to ward No. 15 of the sub-divisional town, where it hid behind a building.

By this time, officials of the forest department, who had been informed about the presence of the bear, rushed to the spot with a cage, nets, and tranquillisers. Officials of the fire department also joined in the efforts to capture the bear.

During the chase across the town, the bear attacked several people who tried to chase it away, injuring eight persons, including a member of the forest department. The injured forest guard has been identified as Debendra Parida. He is undergoing treatment at a local hospital at present.

However, despite the combined efforts of the forest and fire services department and local residents, the operation to catch the animal was still going on at the time of filing this report. Assistant conservator of forests Gautam Kumar Nayak said they were making all possible measures to safely trap the bear.

This, incidentally, is not the first instance of bear attack in the state.

In June 2016, three persons, including a woman, were killed in an attack by bears in Nabarangpur district. Two others were also injured in the attack. The victims had gone to the forest to collect firewood when they were attacked by two bears near Fotaki village within the district's Jharigaon forest range.

In July 2009, 20 people, including a girl and a woman, were injured when a bear attacked them near Kuakhia village in Jajpur district. The bear, which had sneaked into the village from nearby Kalinganagar, attacked a farmer while he was returning from his paddy field. It then targeted other villagers, including two persons on a motorcycle, when they tried to chase it away.

Like bears, instances of elephants straying into human habitations and killing people apart from causing depredation in villages have been a regular occurrence in the state. Wildlife experts attribute this tendency to stray into human settlements to the animals' habitat erosion.