Three of family among four killed by wild elephant in Chhattisgarh village

Jashpur: Four persons, including three members of a family, were killed in an attack by a wild elephant at a village in Chhattisgarh's Jashpur district in the wee hours of Saturday, officials said.

With this, so far nine persons have been killed in separate incidents of elephant attacks in the district in the last one month, they said.

The latest incident took place around 1 am in Gamhriya area of Bagicha Nagar Panchayat when the victims were sleeping in their houses, a forest official here said.

Those killed were identified as Ramkeshwar Soni (35), his daughter Ravita (9) and his brother Ajay (25) and their neighbour Ashwin Kujur (28), he said.

As per the preliminary information, the tusker strayed into the village and damaged a wall of Soni's house and trampled the trio to death. On hearing their screams, Kujur reached the site, but he was also killed by the animal, he said.

Soon after being alerted about the incident, forest and police personnel reached the spot and sent the victims' bodies for post-mortem, he said.

The kin of each of the deceased were provided an instant relief amount of Rs 25,000, while the remaining compensation of Rs 5.75 lakh each will be given after completing necessary formalities, the official added.

Teams of forest personnel have been keeping a tab on the movement of the tusker, said Divisional Forest Office Jashpur division Jitendra Upadhyay.

The forest department has been planning to shift this tusker to another place as it has damaged several houses in the villages of the area in the last few days, he said.

Human-elephant conflicts in the state particularly in the northern part had been a major cause of concern for the last one decade. Since the last few years, the menace has been spreading its footprint in some districts of the central region.

The districts which have been facing the menace mainly are Surguja, Raigarh, Korba, Surajpur, Mahasamund, Dhamtari, Gariaband, Balod, Balrampur and Kanker.

According to the forest department, around 310 people were killed in elephant attacks in the state in the last five years.

On Thursday, three women were killed by an elephant at two places in Korba district of the state, he added.