Wild elephant tramples forest ranger to death in Assam, injures four others

Sandeep Kumar, a senior official at the Jorhat forest department, said that elephants come out from the deep forest areas searching for food during September-October

A forest ranger was killed and four others injured after a team of the forest department came under attack by a wild elephant in Assam’s Jorhat district on Thursday night.

The deceased forest ranger has been identified as Atul Kalita (HT Photo/Sourced)

According to the officials, the incident took place in the Bijoy Nagar area of Jorhat’s Titabor when a herd of elephants came out of the forest in search of food and a forest department team tried to drive them back into the forest.

According to the officials, the team managed to drive away the elephants but one adult elephant suddenly attacked them. “It chased us and managed to catch the forest employee, who accidentally fell on the ground, by its trunk,” said an injured official.

The deceased forest employee has been identified as Atul Kalita, a field-duty official at the Mariani Forest Range. His trampled body was recovered by the forest team on Friday morning and it was taken to Jorhat Medical College and Hospital (JMCH).

The injured officials of the department are identified as Rajiv Burhagohain, Paragjyoti Dutta, Giren Mahatto and another person.

“We recovered the unconscious body in the early hours of Friday and the doctors declared him dead on arrival. The body was later sent for postmortem under the local police’s observation,” said the officials.

Sandeep Kumar, a senior official at the Jorhat forest department, said that elephants come out from the deep forest areas searching for food during September-October.

“This same elephant killed one local resident last year in that area and this year we lost a forest department employee. This is unfortunate and we are trying to find solutions to this issue,” Kumar said.

Locals on Friday alleged that the forest department can’t prevent human-elephant conflict.

The locals also alleged that there was a lack of sufficient weapons and equipment for the forest personnel when they tried to drive away the elephants which led to this tragic event.

“Just imagine when a forest official doesn’t have a gun and other equipment to protect himself during the dangerous duty, how will the common people survive,” a local resident said.

Kumar however said that the team which went to drive away the herd of elephants on Thursday night had guns and other weapons.

“They also shot some rounds of bullets in defence, but the elephant managed to catch Atul somehow and the situation went out of control,” he said.