Wayanad: Three school children had a narrow escape after a wild elephant charged at them in Pozhuthana town here on Thursday. The visuals of the students fleeing in panic, with the elephant in pursuit, quickly went viral on social media. One of the boys, Risan, fell in front of the elephant while running, but managed to escape unhurt. 

The incident happened around 11:30 pm on Wednesday, when the plus two students Rihan, Risan and Sabir, residents of Pozhuthana town, were on their way to a relative's house on a bike. Risan and Rihan are siblings, and Sabir is their cousin. Rihan just completed his SSLC. 

According to Rihan, they usually go to their relatives' house by 8 pm and stay all night. "But yesterday we were late, as my uncle was coming from the Gulf", Rihan said. "We thought we could go after greeting him," he said.

"When we reached the school premises in the town, all of a sudden we found three elephants on the road", he said. "We stopped the bike and also kept dimming the headlight, hoping that the animal would go. But instead, it got furious and charged at us. We had to run away as there was no time to turn the bike back", he said. It was drizzling, and Rihan slipped while running. While trying to get up, the elephant blocked him with its trunk. "I thought it was going to beat me with the trunk, and it was the end", he said. 

However, Rihan managed to get back on his feet and resume running, squeezing between the elephant's trunk and a house's compound wall before jumping into the compound of his relative's house. Rihan said that at that moment, he wasn’t thinking of anything and his only instinct was to save his life.

The CCTV visuals of a nearby shop showed that of the three elephants, only one charged at the boys. 

Shahina Shamsuddin, Standing Committee Chairperson for Welfare at the Pozhuthana village panchayat, said that elephants entering the town is very rare, though the herds crisscross the tea and coffee plantations in the neighbouring zones. She said that the incident has shocked everyone. "More embarrassingly, the forest department has yet to locate the three elephants that left the town after causing havoc following the incident," she said. Riswan and Rihan are sons of Asiya and Rassack, whereas Sabir is the son of Salmath and Sulaiman.