TURA: A farmer who tried to save his paddy crop from a herd of marauding wild elephants was trampled to death in Mahendraganj border area of South West Garo Hills late Monday night.
A large herd of the wild elephants, said to number as many as four dozen, in search of food descended on the Garo village of Meringipara, 8 km from Chapahati in the dead of night.
The hungry pachyderms targetted the rich paddy fields of the village gorging on the harvest.
To stop the elephants from destroying their entire year of hard earned work on the crops, the villagers tried to chase away the herd using drums and other sounds.
While the herd initially retreated, one of the farmers, Grenith D Marak, decided to return to his field to keep a lookout for the herd and protect his crop from the marauding beasts. It proved to be fatal.
A cowherd who went out in the fields early Tuesday morning to graze his cattle found the body of the farmer, a father of five children, lying on the field completely mangled and twisted.
Angry villagers complain that despite complaints to the wildlife department about the presence of the wild elephants, no action has been taken to protect crops and property of the people living on the border.
The elephants are believed to have come up from neighbouring Bangladesh to forage due to the onset of the dry winter season when food becomes scarce.
Villagers inform that besides this large herd of several dozen elephants, another three member group broke through the bamboo walls of the church parish at Chapahati parish, 8 kms from the site of the tragedy, and destroyed banana plantations and arecabut trees.
There is more fear for the villagers about the news of the presence of another solitary male adult pachyderm spotted in the border region by some villagers recently.
