Guwahati, Nov 24: In a tragic incident, four villagers, including two minor boys were trampled to death by wild elephants in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district on Thursday.
The deceased have been identified as Kania Toria (55), Ribika Kerketta (28), Geseya Kerketta (3) and one-and-half year-old Augustin Karmakar. All of them are from Bomanthi village.
According to locals, the incident happened when two adults,accompanied by the children, were returning from an agricultural field after work.
Meanwhile, senior police and forest officials rushed to the spot while the bodies have been sent for postmortem.
“Man-elephant conflict has been rising tremendously in Assam. During winter season, the elephants entered village areas to eat paddy. It has also been seen that most of the paddy fields were rampaged by the wild elephants,” said a local resident.
A report of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, showed that from 2014-2022, 3,938 human lives were lost to wild elephant attacks and in Assam, the number was 561.
Several elephants also lost their lives in the conflict. The main cause of the elephant’s death was electrocution. In some cases, people who were in regular conflict with elephants also poisoned them.
Assam has the second-highest number of elephants after Karnataka, according to the 2017 Elephant census.
