The forest department has lodged a complaint against residents of a village in Jalpaiguri for attacking a tusker who had drunk hooch on Saturday.

The department has also decided to book a person who chased the elephant on an earthmover.

Dwijpratim Sen, the divisional forest officer of Gorumara, said: “People attacked not only the elephant but also the police and forest guards by pelting stones. A person also chased the animal with a JCB. Besides filing a complaint at the police station, we are looking for the driver of the earthmover and we will book him under various provisions of the wildlife protection Act.”

The complaint was filed at Malbazar police station on Sunday.

“We will also hold meetings with tea planters and ask them not to put up blade wires in plantation areas as they injure animals,” said the forest officer.

The tusker, intoxicated after drinking hooch, had gone on a rampage in Damdim village on Saturday.

Sources said that it walked into Mechpara locality in Damdim from nearby Apalchand forest. There, it found a drum with hooch in a betel nut plantation.

The tusker drank the hooch, kicked away the drum and reached Senpara locality.

As people understood that the elephant was drunk, they started harassing and attacking it. While some tugged at its tail, others beat it with sticks or threw bricks at it.

To escape the attacks, the elephant went into a tea plantation, but got injured by blade-wire fences and returned to the field again.

Seeing the elephant returning, some people climbed onto a watchtower. The elephant ran towards the watchtower and knocked it down partially.

“A chunk of concrete fell on the elephant’s head, prompting it to run away again,” said a villager.

Forest officials said that they would soon hold an awareness drive to tell people not to attack wild animals.

"The villagers' harassment of the elephant made our task more difficult. Had they left the spot, the elephant could have easily been driven inside the forest,” said Sen.

Forest officials are also reaching out to people’s representatives in various places.

Mahua Gope, a member of Jalpaiguri zilla parishad, said: “We will ask the representatives of rural bodies to carry out awareness drives to help prevent people from attacking wild animals.”

The district administration in Jalpaiguri will also extend its support to the foresters by conducting an awareness drive to mitigate man-animal conflict in the fringe areas of the forests.

“We will extend our cooperation to the foresters for the awareness drive,” said Shama Parvin, the Jalpaiguri district magistrate.