GUWAHATI: Five persons were killed by wild elephants in two separate incidents of man-elephant conflict in Assam on Tuesday.
A rogue elephants that strayed from a heard of an invading wild elephants killed four persons including a child this morning at Kheroni in West Karbi Anglong district while another person was killed by a lone wild elephant at Borengajuli in Udalguri district of Assam.
A herd of 60-70 wild elephants that has been roaming around in West Karbi Anglong areas of late creating panic among the villagers.
The rogue elephant attacked the victims at around 6 am in a sugarcane field under Kheroni Range of the Forest Department. The deceased were identified as Laxmi Devi (65), Mohit Chauhan (12), Purnima Thapa (35) and Laxmi Devi (47).
Local villagers said that the herd of wild elephants had been roaming around Bogorighat, Phelangpi and Priloo for the last few days.
In yet another incident of man-elephant conflict in Udalguri district of Assam, one person was trampled to death by a lone wild jumbo at Borengajuli under Dimakuchi Police Station in Udalguri district at about 6 am on Tuesday morning.
The victim was identified as Dasarath Gaur (65). According to locals, the victim took his livestock to grazing field when a stray wild jumbo suddenly charged and trampled him to death.
The angry villagers blamed the Forest Department for lack of co-ordination with villagers to chase away herds of jumbos which frequent the villages specifically in the post-harvesting season.
Human-elephant conflict has assumed an alarming proportion in Assam because of rapid shrinkage of forest cover in the state mainly because of encroachment by human beings. The wild elephants often stray onto human settlement in the winter season on search of food and water which becomes scarce in forest area during the dry season.
The wild elephants often create havoc with ripe standing paddy in villages during this season and often destroy sugarcane crop causing irreparable economic loss to the farmers.
The problem of man-elephant conflict most alarming in Udalguri, Sonitpur and Goalpara districts. In case of Udalguri district a number of elephant herds come down from Bhutan hills to raid crop and villages in Assam plains. IN Goalpara too herds of wild elephants come down from Garo Hills in the winter as water bodies inside forest on the hill dry down around this time of the year.