Pazhanji: A brawl among festival organizing committee members just before a procession involving 50 elephants resulted in the jumbos running berserk here in Thrissur district.
The committee members indulged in fisticuffs minutes before the procession of the caparisoned elephants on Sunday. As the police cane charged, those involved in the fight and people who came to see the procession started to run helter-skelter. In the mayhem, panic-stricken people started running towards the elephants and one of the tuskers Nandilath Gopalakrishnan, which was not chained, became restless and moved towards other elephants.
The other pachyderms, which were also not chained, started to run and covered a pretty long distance. A major mishap was averted as mahouts and elephant squad members later brought the jumbos under control.
