Two people were killed in separate attacks by wild elephants in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh district on Saturday, taking the death toll in the state to three this week alone, forest officials said.
They added that the attacks took place in the early hours of the day in the forests of Chahal and Kapu in Dharamjaigarh district.
Panic erupted after a wild elephant entered Talgaon village under the Kapu forest range, and in the chaos, one of the villagers, Shakuntala Bai (37), was killed by a tusk when she ran out of her house, said Jitendra Upadhyay, Dharamjaigarh district forest officer.
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He added that the victim’s minor daughter miraculously survived.
In another incident, laborer Bandhan Singh Agaria (50) was similarly killed by a wild elephant in Oranara village under the Chahal forest range around 5 am when he came out of his house to respond to the call of nature, Upadhyay said.
He added that forest personnel and police rushed to the two sites after villagers informed them and sent the bodies for autopsy.
Immediate financial assistance from $25 thousand pounds were disbursed to the families of each deceased, while the rest was compensated $5.75 lakh will be released after completion of formalities, the official said, adding that further investigations are underway.
Human-elephant conflict has been a major concern in northern Chhattisgarh for more than a decade, and has spread to parts of the central region in recent years.
Korba district and Dharamjaigar district in neighboring Raigarh are among the worst affected areas, along with Surguja, Surajpur, Jashpur and Balrampur districts, where frequent movement of elephants into villages and agricultural fields often leads to human casualties and destruction of crops.
With recent events, the state has reported three attacks on elephants this week alone.
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On July 9, a 55-year-old man was trampled to death by an elephant while collecting wild mushrooms in a Korba district forest, while a 40-year-old shepherd and a 70-year-old woman were killed in similar attacks in the district last month.
According to forest department officials, more than 330 people have been killed in elephant attacks in Chhattisgarh state over the past five years.
