IWN Daily Digest — Wednesday, 23 September 2026
An elephant named Bharat spent two days refusing to leave the spot in Rewa district, Madhya Pradesh, where his companion died of electrocution, forcing the state’s Forest Department to bring in four tuskers from two tiger reserves before he could be safely captured.
As reported by Deccan Chronicle:
“Deeply anguished over the death of its companion due to electrocution, an elephant, named Bharat, refused to move from the mishap site, leading the forest officials to launch a rescue operation involving a team of tuskers. Bharat was finally captured and sent to Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve on Tuesday after a 48-hour-long rescue operation.”
The companion Bharat lost was a tusker he had travelled alongside for seven months, moving together through the forests around Bartollha, near Malakpur. When the older elephant stepped on a live wire and died on Saturday, Bharat stayed through the night at the site, repeatedly trying to rouse the body.
Officials removed the carcass on Sunday for a post-mortem, but Bharat returned to the same spot and would not budge. The Madhya Pradesh Forest Department deployed two tuskers each from Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve and Sanjay Tiger Reserve to help bring him in, an operation that ran two full days before he was captured on Tuesday and moved to Bandhavgarh.
Rewa divisional forest officer Lokesh Nirpura, who led the operation, drew a clear line between the two animals’ temperaments. The elephant that died, he said, “was very calm and composed and has no record of harming any person or damaging properties,” whereas Bharat “is naughty.”
Fish Seized
Forest officials in Golaghat district, Assam, pulled around 300 live Channa Barca — a rare freshwater fish already prized in the aquarium trade — off a bus near Bokakhat on Tuesday, arresting the five people travelling with them.
As reported by ThePrint:
“Around 300 live rare freshwater fish species ‘Channa Barca’, locally known as Cheng Eli, were seized from a bus in Assam’s Golaghat district on Tuesday, and five people were apprehended, Environment and Forest Minister Jayanta Malla Baruah said. Acting on specific intelligence from police, a team of forest personnel of the Eastern Assam Wildlife Division intercepted the bus near Bokakhat and conducted a search.”
Channa Barca survives naturally only in scattered wetlands of the upper Brahmaputra basin, and that scarcity is exactly what traffickers are cashing in on. The fish were being moved without valid permits, according to the Assam Forest Department, whose Eastern Assam Wildlife Division carried out the interception.
Environment and Forest Minister Jayanta Malla Baruah said the seized fish would undergo a veterinary check before officials decide whether to release them into suitable natural habitat. The five people detained near Bokakhat are being questioned about where the consignment was headed.
Sources: Deccan Chronicle · ThePrint
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