A wild elephant strayed into Guwahati from the Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary, creating panic among the people and brought traffic to a standstill in the evening hours on Tuesday.
The tusker came out of the forest in the Six Mile area of the city and arrived at the arterial G S Road where the state secretariat, other major offices, malls and markets are located, forest department sources said.
The elephant walked over 25 km up from Amchang to the Congress headquarters Rajiv Bhavan at ABC Point where forest personnel, zoo officials and the police tried to guide it towards the nearby zoo on the parallel RGB Road or back to the sanctuary, the sources said.
Movement of vehicles was stopped on the busy G S Road and one side of it was cleared for the elephant so that it could be guided back to Amchang, they said.
The jumbo did not attack anybody or damage vehicles.
After attempts to send the animal back to its habitat failed, it was sedated with a tranquilizer gun, the sources said.
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The elephant then went inside the compound of a residential house and it is still there.
Forest officials are working out plans to transport the elephant back to the forest at night after traffic eased on G S Road.
Forest Minister Parimal Suklabaidhya said the personnel of his department tried to guide the elephant back to the forest and did not immediately tranquilize it without assessing its health condition.
As the elephant moved between the stationary vehicles on the road, people took its photos with their mobile phones as the police tried to restrict the group of people which was following the jumbo.