A herd of elephants had entered Vidarbha’s Gadchiroli district in mid-October last year. The jumbos then moved into Chandrapur’s Brahmapuri tehsil and after meandering in the tehsil went back to Gadchiroli. Now, a well-known historian Ashoksingh Thakur has put forth the theory that the elephants might have landed in the district owing to their ancestral roots in Gondwana forest. The herd has migrated from Odisha and via Chhattisgarh forest. They were spotted in Usegaon and Kondhala villages adjoining Armori- Wadsa road in Gadchiroli district.

 

Later they crossed Waiganga river and entered forest in Brahmapuri. The elephants were sighted near Pimpalgaon, Kharkada and Nilaj villages in the tehsil. The elephants later marched back to Armori in Gadchiroli district by crossing the Wainganga. According to Ashoksingh Thakur, Vidarbha region was once very rich with flora and fauna and also had a sizeable population of elephants. “Abdul Hamid Lahori has mentioned in the Shahjahannama, a genre of works written about the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, about Gondwana forest having presence of huge elephants,” he said. Thakur further informed that during the 17th century, after being defeated by the Mughals, Kok Shah, a Gond king from Dewgad, Nagpur, had presented as many as 170 elephants and gold and other ornaments worth Rs 4 lakh to Khan Dauran Bahadur, the Commander of the Mughal army in the 17th century.

 

As per records, Kok Shah had refused to pay to the Mughal emperor following which Khan Dauran Bahadur with his army along with Krishna Shah, the Gond king of Chanda, had defeated Kok Shah in a battle at Nagpur. After the defeat, Kok Shah had presented 170 elephants to Khan Dauran Bahadur. Thakur said that elephants are among the most intelligent animals and so there is every likelihood that they might have reached Brahmapuri because of their ancestral lineage. Fossils of elephants were also found in Warora tehsil a few months back. “It is a matter that needs to be probed and so concerned authorities should do the needful and order a probe to trace migration of elephants to Chandrapur district,” said Thakur while talking to The Hitavada.