Chhattisgarh: Elderly woman killed by wild elephant in Jashpur
A 62-year-old woman was killed by a wild elephant in Chhattisgarh's Jashpur district on Friday, a forest official said. Budhiyaro Bai was attacked by the tusker while she was working in a field near Mahua village under Sanna forest range, said divisional forest officer (Jashpur division) Srikrishna Jadhav. The pachyderm had lifted her with its trunk and slammed her on the ground, killing her on the spot, he said.
Police and forest personnel rushed to the spot and the body was sent for post-mortem, the official said.
The deceased's kin have been provided an instant relief of Rs 25,000, he added.
Villagers in the area had been alerted about the movement of a herd of 18 elephants in the nearby forests that had also destroyed some houses in six villages, the official said.
Several incidents of human-elephant conflict have been reported from the forested areas of northern Chhattisgarh, comprising Surguja, Surajpur, Korba, Raigarh, Jashpur, Balrampur and Koriya districts.
The state has reported deaths of six elephants in four districts in the last 11 days.
On Thursday, a tusker died of electrocution at a village in Raigarh district and two villagers were arrested in this connection, another forest official said.
Earlier this week, an elephant was electrocuted after coming in contact with a live wire at a farm in a village in Raigarh, while an elephant calf died after getting stuck in a marshland in Dhamtari district.
Last week, carcasses of two tuskers were recovered from the Pratappur forest range in Surajpur district, while another jumbo was found dead in neighbouring Balrampur district.
