A women was trampled to death by a herd of wild elephants at Muliabari housing area in Digboi of upper Assam‘s Tinsukia district on Sunday morning. Digboi is 32.37 km from Tinsukia town. The woman was identified as Kumari Rana, 65, of Digboi town.
Sources said the women went out for morning walk at 4.30 am and suddenly fall on a herd of wild elephants which comes out from Upper Dehing reserve forest east block. The wild heard trampled her to death. The deceased woman is a resident of Digboi town and few days ago she came to her daughter’s house at Muliabari housing area.
Digboi forest ranger, Parineeta Singh on Sunday said the local resident informed them about the incident and they rushed to the area and found that the women was trampled to death by a heard of wild elephant.
“The elephants heard frequently seen in the Oil field area which falls under Upper Dehing reserve forest east block. The herd comes into the area in search of food. We sent the body for post mortem examination and an immediate compensation of Rs 50,000 has been given to the family members of her family. After verifying post mortem reports and other documents Rs 4 lakh will be handed over to her family as compensation,” Singh added.
Man-elephant conflict has been rising tremendously in the upper Assam region and this is the sixth death reported from this region.
An source said a heard of elephants frequently comes out from Upper Dehing reserve forest east block in search of food and entered into the human habitation. In Assam every year many people lost their life in elephant attack. On May 12, Phulmoti Pegu was trampled to death by a heard of elephants at Demow in Sivsagar district.
Bijay Gogoi, president of Evergreen Foundation, an NGO, said man- elephant conflict has been happening due to shrinking of forest cover. “Due to rampant deforestation the elephants comes out from the forest in search of food entered in human habitation resulted in a conflict,” Gogoi said.