Man killed in elephant attack in Chhattisgarh; 4th fatality in 4 days

Balrampur: A 35-year-old man was trampled to death by a wild elephant in Chhattisgarh's Balrampur district on Thursday, officials said.

The incident took place in Ghaghra village under Pasta police station limits when the victim, identified as Mahendra Gond, and three other villagers went to monitor their crops in fields, a police official said.

The elephant caught hold of the man with its trunk and trampled him to death, the official said, adding that other villagers managed to escape after sensing the presence of the jumbo.

Forest and police personnel reached the spot and sent the body for post-mortem, he said.

The man's family members, residents of nearby Kochli village, were provided an instant relief amount of Rs 25,000 while the remaining compensation of Rs 5.75 lakh will be given after the completion of necessary formalities, forest officials said.

On Monday, two persons were killed and another was injured in separate elephant attacks in Ramanujganj area of Balrampur, while a woman was killed in a similar incident on Wednesday in Shankargarh area of the district.

Two tuskers that entered Balrampur from neighbouring Jharkhand have wreaked havoc in the area. Teams of forest personnel have been keeping a tab on the movement of the two elephants and alerting locals, a forest official said.

Human-elephant conflicts were a major cause of concern in Chhattisgarh in the last decade, especially in northern parts. But now such incidents have been reported in some districts of the central region in the last few years.

The most-affected districts are Surguja, Raigarh, Korba, Surajpur, Mahasamund, Dhamtari, Gariaband, Balod, Balrampur and Kanker.

According to forest officials, nearly 320 persons were killed in elephant attacks in the state in the last five years.