An incident involving the theft of a one crore elephant has been reported in Palamu district. The mahout has fled with the elephant, but authorities are hopeful due to a tracking chip embedded within the animal. Forest officials and police are currently utilizing the chip to locate the missing elephant. Narendra Kumar Shukla, a resident of Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, filed a formal complaint at the Medininagar Sadar police station on Friday. Shukla stated that he had taken the elephant, named Jaymati, under an agreement from Sangam Lal. He transported the elephant to Jharkhand due to the absence of adequate provisions for the animal in his village. The responsibility of caring for the elephant was then given to Munna Pandey and Munna Pathak of Mirzapur. These individuals befriended Tarkeshwar Nath, who owned another elephant. The group subsequently traveled with the elephant to the Jorkat region, within the Medininagar Sadar police station jurisdiction of Palamu. Shukla’s account details his arrival in Palamu on August 11, where he encountered the elephant and mahout in Jorkat. Upon his return to Jorkat on August 13, he found the elephant and its handler missing. Despite extensive searches conducted across multiple areas of Palamu and Jharkhand, neither the elephant nor the mahout were found. Shukla subsequently filed an FIR a month after the disappearance. Police sources confirmed on Saturday that the elephant’s estimated value is one crore rupees, as reported by Shukla. Investigations are ongoing, with the FIR now registered. The forest department has been alerted regarding the tracking chip, and efforts are being made to pinpoint the elephant’s location using this technology.
