New Delhi, July 5: If excited residents of the capital talk about the big Sunday night scare, they wouldn’t be far from the truth — literally.

Not many are used to seeing a rampaging elephant in the heart of the city, least of all at night.

Well past midnight on Sunday, phones at the Delhi police control room started ringing. At first, the cops did not know what to make of the calls. It did not take too long to figure out.

By the time the control room got its first frantic call, the tusker — its terrified mahout on top — had damaged an auto-rickshaw passing by. It was now looking for its next target and had crossed over to the other side of the Zakir Hussain Road that leads to India Gate.

Not too many vehicles ply Delhi’s roads at 2.30 in the night.

But the elephant found another victim — again an auto-rickshaw coming from the opposite side. The driver tried to turn around but abandoned his vehicle and fled as the big beast closed in.

“The elephant almost crashed into the auto-rickshaw...like a head-on collision,” said an officer at Tilak Marg police station.

The officer, like dozens of others, had rushed to the spot, but realised soon there was not much they could do. Elephants have not been known to care for policemen. So, over the next two-and-a-half hours, they cordoned off stretches on three-four major roads and an equal number of intersections in the New Delhi area that lead to the Yamuna two kilometres away.

Most policemen followed the elephant, while some on motorcycles rode ahead, warning motorists to keep out of the way. “It was scary. Someone could have got hurt or killed,” assistant sub-inspector of police Budhi Ram recalled.

The mahout, 25-year-old Tillu, was equally scared. The police tried to convince Tillu — a case was later registered against him — to come down, but he stayed put. “He said the elephant would surely kill him if he did,” a police officer said.

Not all motorists paid heed to the police warnings. At Bhairon Marg along Pragati Maidan, two taxi drivers decided to ignore the advice and soon had the tusker charging at them. “They fled for their lives, leaving their vehicles behind,” said an officer.

Deputy commissioner (traffic) Mukesh Kumar Meena, who was on duty that night, heard about the crisis and decided to check out in his official white Ambassador. The elephant spotted his car soon enough and charged, but his driver sped away.

It took about two hours for the elephant to travel a distance of about two kilometres, across the Yamuna. But Tillu did not dare to dismount till his family and friends managed to chain the tusker.

“Luckily, it hasn’t been raining or we would have been in deep trouble. The Yamuna would have flooded and we would have had to take the elephant through one of the two bridges to east Delhi that has heavy traffic through the night,” a police officer said.