Bengaluru: The majestic elephant Arjuna, who carried the golden ‘howdah’ during the famous Mysuru Dasara procession, died in a fight with a wild tusker during a capture operation in Karnataka’s Hassan district on Monday, officials said.

Sixty four-year-old Arjuna, who served the forest department for almost 52 years and had participated in many elephant capture operations, died near Yeslur in Sakaleshpur, they said.

Owing to the pressure from the locals to tame the wild elephants, an operation was launched in the Hassan district’s in Belur taluk on November 24, they said.

“Five elephants were captured from November 24-30, of which three have been left in other forest areas after fixing radio collars on them. Two of the female elephants which were also darted were radio collared and reunited with their families. All these five elephants are being monitored,” said Kumar Pushkar, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife).

“Today, the operation shifted from Belur to Yeslur where we have some troubling elephants, therefore we wanted to capture and place radio collars on them so that we could note their movement and then alert the people accordingly. But unfortunately, we lost our best elephant Arjuna in a fight. He was inducted into the forest department in 1972 and served us for almost 52 years,” Pushkar added.

Arjuna carried the 750-kg ‘howdah’ during the Dasara procession in Mysuru eight times until 2019.

Taking to microblogging site ‘X’, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah expressed grief over the death of the famed elephant.

“It was sad to hear the demise of ‘Arjuna’, the elephant who was loved by the people and who was the centrepiece of the historic Mysuru Dasara, Jambu Sawari (parade of caparisoned elephants) for eight years successfully,” he said in the post in Kannada.

“Arjuna, who served mother Chamundeshwari by carrying a golden howdah weighing exactly 750 kg, marching with utmost restraint, died in a fight with wild elephant. Arjuna walking majestically among millions of people will forever remain in the minds of Kannadigas like me,” his post added.

Karnataka Environment and Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre expressed grief over the death of Arjuna, saying it was very unfortunate that the famed elephant died after being attacked by a rogue tusker.

“The rouge elephant attacked Arjuna and hit him with its tusks, causing his death,” Khandre said in a statement.

“Even after the staff opened fire in the air, the tusker attacked the tamed elephant. While the other three tamed elephant withdrew, Arjuna fought alone. The veterinarian and the mahout somehow escaped,” he added.

Khandre said the forest officials have fixed radio collars on five wild elephants so far.