Chhattisgarh Man Trampled To Death By Wild Elephant, 2nd Incident This Month

A villager was trampled to death by a wild elephant in Chhattisgarh's Raigarh district on Wednesday, the second such incident in the region this month, officials said.

Mohitram Yadav (39) was attacked by the jumbo in Ongna village under Dharamjaigarh forest division at around 3 am when he was out to answer nature's call, a forest official said.

The elephant caught hold of the man with its trunk and trampled him to death, he said.

After being alerted, forest personnel reached the village, located over 250 km from the state capital Raipur, and shifted the body for postmortem, he said.

The wife of the victim was provided an instant relief amount of Rs 25,000, while the remaining compensation will be given after the completion of necessary formalities, the official said.

On August 3, a 55-year-old man was killed in an elephant attack in the same area.

With the latest incident, eight people have been killed in separate incidents of elephant attacks so far this year in Dharamjaigarh area, forest officials said.

Several incidents of human-elephant conflict have been reported in the past from the thick forested northern Chhattisgarh, consisting of Surguja, Surajpur, Korba, Raigarh, Jashpur, Balrampur and Korea districts.

The region has witnessed several killings of villagers and widespread damage to houses and crops by rogue elephants.

As per government records, 204 people were killed in elephant attacks, while 45 jumbos died in the state in the last three years (2018, 2019, 2020).

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