A 50-year-old man was trampled to death by a wild elephant in his own field in Andhra Pradesh’s Vizianagaram district on Friday morning, the police said.
The incident happened at Parasuramapuram village of Komarada block at around 7.30 am, when the victim, Raghumandala Lakshmi Naidu, went to his fields to inspect the crop.
“A group of five elephants had been moving in the area for the last few days, destroying banana plantations and other horticulture crops. One of them, supposed to be a female pregnant elephant, went berserk and rushed towards Naidu, lifted him with her trunk and banged him on the soil, before trampling him,” Komarada sub-inspector of police V Gnana Prasad told Hindustan Times.
Naidu was killed on the spot, while a few other farmers ran for safety. The police with the help of local forest officials drove the herd of elephants away into the adjacent forest areas.
“We have shifted the body to the local hospital for post mortem. A case was booked under Section 174 of Criminal Procedure Code for unnatural death,” the police official said.
This is the second incident of a farmer being killed by elephants in the same area in the last two weeks. On October 29, a 25-year-old farmer Yerra Narayana was also trampled to death in a similar manner near Gumpa under Komarada block.
{{/usCountry}}This is the second incident of a farmer being killed by elephants in the same area in the last two weeks. On October 29, a 25-year-old farmer Yerra Narayana was also trampled to death in a similar manner near Gumpa under Komarada block.
{{/usCountry}}According to V Ramesh, district information officer, attacks by pachyderms have been happening in villages of Srikakulam and Vizianagaram district bordering Odisha very frequently. “A group of elephants from Odisha crossed over the Nagavali River and entered these areas last year and since then, they have been creating havoc in the bordering villages by destroying standing crops and razing huts,” he said.
In 2019, there have been at least four instances of elephants attacking people and killing them in Vizanagaram district. “It was only on Thursday that top forest department officials had a meeting to discuss strategies to curb the elephant menace. Within hours, this latest killing took place,” Ramesh said.
There is a proposal to fence the forest area where these elephants are moving, so as to prevent them from entering human habitations, he added.