A herd of wild elephants, which had strayed into human habitation in the forest fringes in search of food and water, have destroyed ragi and maize crops besides destroying banana plantations.

It is reported that the heard of wild elephants, consisting of six tuskers, had strayed into the fields near Gurupura from Nagarahole Reserve Forest on Monday and had stayed put in the maize field since early morning.

Efforts by the Forest Department personnel to drive the elephants back to the forest was hampered due to the presence of hundreds of villagers. Earlier, before the arrival of Forest personnel, the villagers themselves tried to drive the elephants back, but the elephants did not budge and stayed put near a lake.

Later, the Forest personnel, with the help of villagers succeeded in driving the elephants back to the forest in the evening.

Meanwhile, the Forest Department personnel after driving the elephants back to the forest, made announcements through public address system asking the villagers to be careful and not to go to their fields.

DCF Balachander, ACFs Somappa and Prasanna Kumar, RFOs Madhusudhan, Shivashankaraswamy, Girish and others took part in the operation.