An adult male elephant was electrocuted at Birpara in Alipurduar district of West Bengal on Tuesday, making it the third such incident in the district in five weeks.
On Tuesday morning, a 15-year-old tusker was found dead on a small patch of land near a house at Ramjhora tea estate in Birpara police station area. “Prima facie probe showed the tusker died of electrocution,” said Mridul Kumar, divisional forest officer, Jalpaiguri.
“We have identified some people who might have laid the live wire to drive away wild elephants,” he added.
The earlier two incidents were reported at Buxa tiger Reserve forest and Madarihat near Jaldapara National Park on June 16 and June 24 respectively.
In each incident, the elephants died after coming in contact with live electric wires that were illegally tapped from high tension lines by villagers to save their crops, said a senior forest official who requested anonymity.