Man trampled to death by elephant in Ranchi's Ratu

Ranchi, Mar 2 (PTI) A man was trampled to death by a wild elephant in Jharkhand's Ranchi district on Monday, police said.

The incident occurred at Chitrakota village under Ratu police station limits, around 18 km from the capital city Ranchi.

"A wild elephant trampled a man to death at Chitrakota village around 9.30 am," Ratu police station in-charge Ramnarayan Singh told PTI.

Ranchi Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Srikant Verma said a person was also injured in the incident, and he was admitted to a hospital.

The deceased was identified as Subodh Khalkho (30).

"A team of the forest department visited the village soon after the incident and handed over Rs 25,000 as immediate relief to the deceased's family. After some official procedure, the family will be provided with the whole compensation amount. The injured person was provided Rs 5,000," the DFO said.

Jharkhand government provides Rs 4 lakh compensation in case of death by elephant.

A team has also been sent to drive out the elephant from the village to the forest area, and the operation would start around 3 pm.

On February 27, a wild elephant entered Jharkhand's capital Ranchi and returned to the forest after triggering panic among people in the city for five hours.

In April last year, two elephants had strayed into an abandoned cold storage in Ranchi's Ratu, around 16 km from the city.

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren had recently expressed concerns over the rising number of casualties due to man-elephant conflicts in the state and directed officials to develop a mechanism to ensure that no human death occurs due to attacks by animal.

Around 27 people died due to elephant attacks in several districts, including Ramgarh, Bokaro, Hazaribag, Chaibasa, Jamshedpur, Lohardaga, Gumla and Dumka, in the past few months, which was a "matter of serious concern", he had said. PTI SAN SAN RG