A tractor, laden with sacks, was slowly making its way to the Kannimala factory the other day. But as the vehicle reached near the forest fringes in the tea plantation, a wild elephant, which is fondly called ‘Padayappa’ by local people, turned up on the road.
The driver immediately applied the brakes but ‘Padayappa’ continued with its slow rolling gait towards the vehicle parked on the narrow road. Sacred, the drivers and the two workers on the tractor got off, and watched from a distance.
Once near the tractor, the jumbo found its way blocked by the vehicle. Apparently irked by this, the jumbo picked up the gunny bags one by one and threw them away. But that did not pacify the mighty animal, and the tusker pushed the tractor off the road to a depth of 50-ft.
The popular wild elephant, which is not known to have attacked anyone, has not shown such aggressive behaviour recently, the local people claimed.
The incident happened in the evening on the estate road near Kannimala at the Kadalar estate of the Kanan Devan Company near Munnar.
