HASSAN: Two men working in a coffee plantation were trampled to death by a tusker near Kadegarje village in Belur taluk on Friday morning.
Angry locals blocked the state highway connecting Belur to Sakleshpur and demanded that chief minister Basavaraj Bommai intervene to fix the problem. They claimed although wild elephants are raiding their farms and attacking villagers, the forest department hasn't attended to their complaints.
The deceased were Chikkayya, 52, and Chikkaiah, 55, who were daily-wage workers from the same village.
The duo was attacked around 9am on a plantation near the village. There were six workers engaged in plantation work who ran for cover when the tusker approached. But the duo could not outrun the animal, an official said.
Nearly an hour after the deaths, hundreds of local people gathered near the plantation, burnt tyres and blocked the highway. They shouted slogans against the state government and demanded a permanent solution to the frequent attack of elephants in the area. They refused to lift the bodies, demanding that the chief minister and forest minister Umesh Katti visit the place. They ended their protest around 4pm after forest and taluk officials intervened, foresters said.
DCF KN Basavaraju gave cheques for Rs 2 lakh each to the families of the deceased. The remaining Rs 5.5 lakh compensation will also be given to each family, he said. A monthly pension amount of Rs 2,000 will be given for five years to both families.
