Ex-BSF jawan trampled to death by elephants in C'garh

A retired Border Security Force jawan was trampled to death by a herd of wild elephants in Chhattisgarh's Jashpur district, an official said Wednesday.

The incident took place on Tuesday night when the victim, Tyofil Tirky (55), was walking towards his home in Dabkala village under Tapkara forest range bordering with Odisha after attending a family function nearby, divisional forest officer Krishna Kumar Jadhav said.

Suddenly, a herd of elephants appeared there and attacked him. The jumbos smashed the man on the ground with their trunks before trampling him to death, he said.

"Tirky, a retired Border Security Force (BSF) man, died on the spot. On getting information, the forest personnel reached there and sent the body for post-mortem," he said.

The kin of the deceased have been provided an instant relief amount of Rs 25,000, the official said.

The herd of elephants entered into Tapkara area from neighbouring Odisha, he said, adding that forest personnel have been directed to keep a tab on the tuskers' movement to prevent any untoward incident further.

The Tapkara region here shares border with Odisha and Jharkhand states and the dense forest at this tri-junction is a prime habitat of elephants.

Forest officials from Jharkhand and Odisha have also been asked to share inputs about the cross-border movement of elephants so that a strategy can be chalked out to check human-animal conflict, Jadhav said.

On May 3, two villagers were killed in separate incidents of elephant attack in Kunkuri forest area here.

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 tribals and widespread damage to houses and crops by rogue elephants.