Hakka patas (a cynical Sinhala term which translates as jaw breaker) are small improvised explosive devices, also known as a Homemade Explosive Device (HED), which consist of gun powder, stones, lead and iron shaped into a ball. They are made among the rural agrarian villages in the Northern and North Eastern part of Sri Lanka for the purpose of keeping wild animals, including elephants, away from the crops.

These explosives are also used by villagers to kill small animals such as wild boars and by illegal poachers to hunt around forests, tank bunds and even in sanctuaries. But the constant victims of these explosives are most often small elephant calves and sometimes adult elephants, cattle and domesticated animals such as dogs.

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