C'garh: Ex-sarpanch killed, wife injured in elephant attack

A 65-year-old former sarpanch of a village was killed and his wife injured in an attack by a wild elephant at a forest in Chhattisgarh's Raigarh district.
The incident took place last evening in Tamnar forest range when the victims were returning to their native village Jivri from a market, a district police official said today.
As per preliminary information, Jivri village's former sarpanch Nanku Ram Rathiya, his wife and their neighbours had gone to a market in nearby Saraipali village.
On way back home in the evening, they came face to face with the pachyderm in the forest where Rathiya and his wife got trapped, while the others managed to escape.

The pachyderm smashed Rathiya with its trunk before stomping onhim, killing him on the spot, the official said adding that his wife sustained injuries on her legs.
After the victims' neighbours informed other villagers about the incident, they called up police and forest officials and rushed the injured woman to a local hospital, he said.

Meanwhile, Rathiya's body has been sent for postmortem to the district hospital.
The kin of the deceased have been given an instant relief amount of Rs 25,000 by forest department, police said.
Last month,a 47-year-old womanwas trampled to death by anelephantinOngna village of Raigarh district.

The thick forested northern Chhattisgarh, comprising Surguja, Korba, Raigarh, Jashpur, Surajpur and Korea districts, is infamous for human-elephantconflicts.
The region has witnessed several killings of tribals and widespread damages to houses and crops by rogue elephants in the past years.