Tura, March 29: A villager has lost his life after being attacked by a wild elephant while attempting to take a picture on Good Friday morning in the village of Harigaon, under Garobadha area of West Garo Hills district.
The lone pachyderm has been moving around the area for the last couple of days in search of food and this morning was spotted in the fields surrounding Harigaon village.
Seeing the beast in the field, curiosity got the better of a 50 year old villager who went over reportedly to take a picture when the elephant gave chase and attacked him.
“We received reports the victim had gone close to take a picture when he was attacked. We believe it is the same elephant that was moving around Wakagre area outside Tura in the last couple of weeks,” informed Wildlife DFO Rupankar Marak.
The deceased has been identified as Abing D. Marak of Harigaon,Mukdangra.
The body of the victim has since been retrieved by police teams and taken for a postmortem.
DFO Marak has urged the public to avoid coming in close proximity to the wild animals to avoid such incidents.
Wildlife experts say the elephants are very sensitive and get traumatized by loud noise, especially when humans explode firecrackers and tend to react with an attack when seeing a human.
