E-Paper
Two elderly persons killed in human-elephant conflict in Assam
Locals have appealed to the forest department to find a solution to the human-elephant conflict in the state as they feel forest officials are “ignoring the matter”
Two elderly persons, including a woman, were trampled to death by a herd of wild elephants in Assam’s Goalpara district on Sunday night, forest officials said. The incident took place at Lakhipur area of the district when the herd entered a residential area in search of food.
The deceased have been identified as Ilawati Rabha (56) and Gunj Rabha (70). The elephants destroyed some houses, onlookers said, as other locals managed to escape.
“They were trampled to death on the spot. We informed forest officials after that and they recovered the bodies,” the locals said. The bodies have been sent for postmortem.
On June 22, a 45-year-old man was trampled to death by a wild elephant in Panditpara village of Rangjuli area, Goalpara.
Locals have appealed to the forest department to find a solution to the human-elephant conflict in the state as they feel forest officials are “ignoring the matter”.
“We seek a permanent solution to prevent further tragedies. We live in fear, but we don’t have anyone who can come up with a solution,” they said.
In the past two years, many wild elephants have also been killed in Assam from electrocution and according to forest officials, most of these cases happened because locals used high-tension electric wires near their houses to prevent elephant movements.
