GUWAHATI: A rogue elephant, which residents believe to have gone berserk after separating from a herd, killed as many as five persons, including a minor, within 24 hours at Matia in Goalpara district of Assam with specialised teams on the job to locate and tranquilise the animal, police said on Wednesday afternoon.
According to sources, the deceased include Tiken Chandra Nath (65), who was the first to come across the rampaging elephant on Tuesday morning, followed by four others in the evening – Jahanara Khatun (27), Mizanur Islam (11), Minati Kalita (35) and Hasnabano Nessa (50), all residents of villages in the Matia area, which is around 130 km to the west of Guwahati.
Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal had on Tuesday issued orders to tranquilise the elephant following which teams from Guwahati and Kokrajhar reached the forest on Wednesday morning.
The state government also announced compensation of Rs 4 lakh to the next of kin of the deceased.
A border district, Goalpara shares a contiguous forest with Garo hills with movement of elephants in the area common and man-elephant conflicts happening at regular intervals.
“Till now, the specialised teams have not been able to locate the elephant who is roaming around in the dense forest,” a police official told The Shillong Times from Matia on Wednesday afternoon.
Residents are in a state of fear as well as anger as they apprehend that the elephant, who they name “Laden, has been terrorising people, reportedly killing at least 39 people in the past three years, with the forest department allegedly not pro-active enough to rein in the wild elephant.
“This is nothing but utter failure on the part of the state forest department to rein in a wild elephant which has killed so many people in the past. We demand immediate measures for the safety of the residents,” a resident told media persons at Matia police station where the bodies were kept on Wednesday morning.
According to data placed in the Assam Assembly in February this year, the death toll in man-elephant conflicts in the state has crossed 1,000 since the year 2010 with 761 human casualties and 249 elephant deaths.
