Elephant calf killed after being hit by train in Haridwar

The incident took place when a herd of elephants was crossing a railway track in the Motichur range of Rajaji Tiger Reserve

Haridwar: An elephant calf was killed after being hit by a speeding train while crossing the railway track between Motichur and Raiwala on the Haridwar-Dehradun border on Monday morning, officials said.

While most of the herd had crossed the railway track , the Howrah Express struck the six-year-old calf that was trailing behind. (Representative mage)

The incident took place around 6.30 am when a herd of elephants was crossing the track in the Motichur range of Rajaji Tiger Reserve. While most of the herd had crossed, the Howrah Express struck the six-year-old calf that was trailing behind, officials said.

Forest officials, Government Railway Police personnel and state police teams rushed to the spot soon after the incident.

“The post-mortem has been completed and the carcass was buried in the nearby forest area. Vigil along the railway track in Rajaji Tiger Reserve has been intensified,” said Ajay Lingwal, assistant conservator of forests, Rajaji Tiger Reserve.

Following the incident, two trains-Vande Bharat and Upasana Express-were halted at Raiwala station. Railway traffic on the route remained disrupted for nearly two hours.

A case has been registered against the loco pilot of the Howrah Express, Khushi Ram Maurya, and co-loco pilot Deepak Kumar under relevant sections of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, officials said.

“Prima facie, the train was running above the permissible speed limit. Further investigation is underway and the post-mortem report is awaited,” said Motichur range officer Mahesh Semwal.

The Motichur-Raiwala stretch falls within the elephant corridor of the Rajaji Tiger Reserve, which has a significant population of Asian elephants and has witnessed several similar incidents in the past.

In June this year, an eight-year-old elephant was killed after being hit by the Delhi-bound Shri Siddhbali Jan Shatabdi Express on the Kotdwar–Delhi railway line in Pauri district. In April, another elephant died after being struck by a train on the Lalkuan–Bareilly track in Nainital district.

Train hits have been a recurring threat, particularly in the Terai region. In October last year, a 35-year-old female elephant was injured after being hit by a Haryana Roadways bus in Haldwani. In December 2023, an adult elephant died and its calf was injured after a train engine hit them in the Lalkuan area of Nainital district. A nine-year-old elephant also died during treatment in Kumaon after being hit by a train on the Lalkuan-Haldi track in November 2023. In September 2023, an elephant was killed near the Jamalpur–Sitapur railway crossing in Haridwar, and another male elephant died in a train-hit incident near Ampokhra in Ramnagar the same month.

With a rising elephant population, the man-elephant conflict has grown in Uttarakhand’s Terai belt. The state now has 2,026 elephants, according to the latest forest department census, marking a 29.9% increase since 2015. The elephant population stood at 1,559 in 2012 and 1,839 in 2017.