Tusker crushes man in Garbeta

An elephant crushed a man to death at Garbeta in West Midnapore district.

Tira Murmu,a resident of Golakdamai village, was killed while he was working in the fields on Saturday.

The District Forest Officer of Rupnarayan Division, Arnab Sengupta said the elephant had recently received injuries, when it attacked some people in forest. The same people hurt the elephant there. The officers were deputed to capture and tranquilised the elephant in the area which suddenly turned rogue. The rogue elephant earlier injured five people in the area.

“It is really a sad incident that the farmer died there. We’ll appeal the state Forest department to give compensation to his family,” Sengupta said. However, the Forest department officers reached the spot to inspect the situation.

It may be mentioned that a full grown elephant was found dead at Aguibani village of Garbeta in West Midnapore on Thursday morning.

Local people spotted the elephant which was lying dead in the area. They claimed that the tusker got electrocuted while fighting with some other tuskers. After being informed, state forest department officials reached the spot. According to the preliminary investigation, they suspect that the tusker might have died after being electrocuted. They are yet to come up with any official statement on the actual cause of its death.

The incident had triggered tension in the locality from Thursday morning while some villagers started pouring in from the morning to see the elephant. Many villagers congregated at the area, showered petals with some religious sentiments. The villagers told the forest department officials that the incident took place when some elephants of a same herd fought with each other.

A herd of elephants entered into the village on Wednesday night and caused damages to the cultivable lands and destroyed crops.