GUWAHATI: Three of a family were killed by a herd of wild elephants in Lakhipur area in lower Assam’s Goalpara district on Sunday night as floods have pushed jumbos from wetlands to villages in one of the worst human-elephant conflict-affected districts of the state.
The victims have been identified as Momin Ali (85), Zahura Bibi (80) and Sameeran Bibi (55) of Salbari part II village. The wild elephants continued to destroy houses in the village at the time of filing this report on Monday evening, though no further casualty has taken place. Garun Nagar reserve forest is close to the village from where the herd went on the rampage on Monday night.
“For the last one month, the elephants were roaming in and around Dhamar Beel wetland and were also feeding on the summer paddy. However, they changed their location of late and came near human habitation recently,” said Dhruba Dutta, forest range officer, Lakhipur.
He said the herd of around 42 elephants has come out from the Dhamar Beel wetland as the water level increased recently. Forest officials said the jumbos came in search of highland and food to Salbari part II village from Dhamar Beel. Dutta said the elephant herd has crossed 14-15 km from the wetland and trampled to death a 15-year-old boy at Kushapakri village a couple of days ago.
Senior officials of the state forest department rushed to the spot on Monday. DFO (territorial), Goalpara, Jitendra Kumar, said the death toll due to elephant attack in Lakhipur this year has gone up to six.
“As per information available with us, the neighbouring families fled the village when the elephant herd entered. But somehow that family could not escape and they were killed,” said Kumar.
While the village is surrounded by floodwater at places, forest officials said due to old age, Momin Ali and his wife Zahura Bibi could not leave their home. Sameeran Bibi, their daughter, was also killed on the spot.
While agriculturally-rich Lakhipur has been a grazing ground of wild elephants coming down from Meghalaya hills, there are over a hundred reserve and post-reserve forests in Goalpara district. Most of these are smaller in size and do not have woody as well as grasslands that can fulfill the nutritional requirements of the elephants and thus elephants often go out to paddy fields and human habitations in search of food.
