GUWAHATI, Dec 22— Parbati Barua, the queen of elephants, has one more call for her. This time from Chattisgarh Government to catch the four wild tuskers in Laxmipur area of Raigarh district. These wild tuskers have been creating havoc in Chattisgarh for quite a long time. An Indian Express report from Raipur said yesterday that the Chattisgarh Government had drawn up a Rs 36 lakh plan to catch the elephants with the help of Smt Barua. The operation to catch the elephants was scheduled to begin in October last after the pachyderms killed five persons and caused heavy damage to crops in the Laxmipur area.
In the past three years, wild elephants had killed 25 persons and damaged property worth Rs 30 lakh in Jaipur, Raigar, Korba and Sarguja district of Chattisgarh, said the Indian Express report. Assam’s daughter Parbati Barua is the only woman elephant hunter of the world. Her expertise in lassoing elephants is envied even by the male elephant hunters. Her father Late Prakritish Barua, who was popularly known as Lalji, was a well-known expert on Asian elephants. Even the American journals, like the Span, also described him as an authority on Indian elephants.
Parbati Barua, also a niece of the doyen of Indian Film industry Late Pramathesh Barua and a younger sister of the uncrowned queen of Goalpariya folk song Padmashree Pratima Pandey Barua, had four elephants earlier. She now has two elephants,— both female. She uses them for relief works during the floods in West Bengal and also in chasing away wild elephants, and in jungle patrol. She has been working in West Bengal since 1981. The West Bengal State Government also requisitions her help in treating the injured and sick elephants of its Forest Department.
A member of the Asian Elephants Specialists’ Group of the IUCN, Parbati Barua spends more than 265 days in a year in jungles, with her mahuts and elephants, to acquire more knowledge about the elephants and the wildlife as a whole. Though she spends most of her time in West Bengal, virtually, arena of her work is now spread over all the elephant-bearing States of the country. Chief Wildlife Warden of Chattisgarh told The Indian Express that the two elephants of Smt Barua were on their way to Chattisgarh. Though the Laxmipur operation will need sometime to start, the presence of Smt Barua’s team will definitely reassure the villagers, the Chief wildlife warden exuded the hope.
Though the Governments of other States have been keenly requisitioning the service of Smt Barua and her team in meeting the challenges emerging out of the man-elephant conflict, the Assam Government had consulted her only recently on the issue, even though incidents of man-elephant conflict is growing in the State every passing year.