Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala said that 10,000 people should be deployed to protect people’s lives until a scientific solution is found to the human-elephant conflict. The Minister said this while addressing the Kurunegala District Coordination Committee.
He said that mobile guard posts, vehicles and civil security officers should be deployed as temporary solutions to the conflict to protect people’s lives from elephants, and asked for the number of officers required for that.
He said that currently only 1,025 civil security officers can be provided, and that people are being harassed by elephants not only at midnight but also at around seven in the morning.
The minister pointed out that the people who were called to the conflict did not want to harm the elephants, no matter how much harm they suffered, and said that it should not be possible for what they have been searching for their entire lives to be destroyed overnight by elephants.