Berhampur: A herd of elephants trampled a farmer to death in a village of Odisha’s Ganjam district on Saturday night.
According to sources, the herd of 17 elephants, coming from Chhattisgarh, has created havoc in villages under Ghumsur North forest division for the last few days. They have damaged paddy crop in the farm fields.
While the elephants entered Tarsing under Bhanjanagar block of the district, the villagers came out to herd them away. Holding sticks, torches and burning hay sticks, they tried to drive the pachyderms away from their paddy fields on Saturday night.
Instead of getting frightened, the elephants rushed towards the villagers. While the farmers ran from the place to save their lives, one of them fell down and was trampled to death by the invading elephants.
On being informed, Forest officials went to the village and recovered the body of the farmer, identified as Pabitra Patra (48), from the paddy field. They sent the body for post-mortem and have assured his family of compensation as per the government norms.
