Four die in elephants attack in Jharkhand villages

Chaibasa (Jharkhand), Jan 9 (PTI) Four people including a woman were killed and two others suffered serious injuries in separate elephant attacks in Jharkhand, officials said on Friday.

The incidents occurred in Garwah, Hazaribag and West Singhbhum districts since Thursday night.

A rogue elephant killed two more persons, including a minor, in West Singhbhum district in the wee hours of Friday, a senior police officer said.

The full-grown tusker remained in Tilokutti village in Majhgaon police station area, close to the Odisha border, despite efforts to drive the animal out, Sub-Divisional Police Officer (Jagannathpur) Rafael Murmu told PTI.

The deceased were 40-year-old Prakash Malwa and a minor boy from Benisagar village.

A villager and a member of a Quick Response Team (QRT) engaged in driving out the tusker suffered grievous injuries on early Friday.

Murmu said the elephant was not moving out of the village despite repeated attempts to chase it away.

Over the past fortnight, around 18 people have been killed in wild elephant attacks in Goilkera and Kolhan forest ranges of the district, officials said.

Of the deceased, six persons, including four members of a family, were killed in Noamundi block on Tuesday night, they added.

A forest officer said that in Chirka village under Chinia police station of Garwah district, a 52-year-old woman, Geeta Devi, was trampled to death by a wild pachyderm on late Thursday night.

The woman and her husband Prabhu Korwa were asleep in their mud house when the elephant stranded from its herd, demolished the house.

While Prabhu managed to run out of the house, his wife was killed in the elephant attack.

Forester Animesh Kumar said that a team has rushed to the spot to investigate the incident. He said the team was facing difficulty reaching the spot in the absence of an accessible road.

Kumar said the deceased’s family was given Rs 50,000 as interim relief and assured it that compensation would be provided as per government provisions following completion of formalities, besides adequate compensation for the damaged house.

In another incident in Hazaribag district, a villager was trampled to death by a wild elephant in Banha village under Katkatamdag block on early Friday morning.

The pachyderm claimed two lives in three days in the district. PTI COR BS MNB NN