A herd of wild elephants trampled a 60-year-old widow to death on Saturday in Assam’s Goalpara district.
The incident took place at Dohikata Kadamtola under the Goalpara forest range at 5 pm on Saturday.
The deceased has been identified as Kiran Rabha.
Like the normal trend, in this particular case also, the forest area, adjacent to the village, was ransacked by a herd of wild elephants in search of food.
“Several houses were damaged by the wild elephants and as the widow tried to run away, she was trampled to death,” sources said.
After the villagers called the office of the Goalpara District Journalists’ Association, local journalists took the pain of giving the first information to both the beat and range forest offices and requested the officers to send a team for the rescue of the villagers.
The forest department last year allotted at least two vehicles for anti-depredation related matters.
However, most of the villagers of the man-elephant conflict-affected areas keep on complaining that they hardly see any forest team visiting their areas to decrease the conflict.
The man-elephant conflict increases during the harvesting season in areas such as Rongjuli, Daranggiri, Krishnai, Dudhnoi, Matia, Futuripara, Dohikata, Lalabori and Harimura.
The people in these areas said they witness wild herds coming in different groups on regular basis and try to enter the villages in search of harvested paddy.