Noamundi: Nine people were killed over two days in Jharkhand, barely a few km from the state’s border with Odisha, in elephant attacks arising from human-wildlife conflict linked to growing human encroachment into forest areas.
Teams of experts have been requisitioned from Odisha and West Bengal to handle the crisis.
The attacks took place in the Noamundi area of Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district. While six persons were killed on Tuesday night, three died on Monday, officials said.
Among the six killed on Tuesday, four belonged to the same family.
Six members of the family were sleeping in a straw-thatched house near a threshing floor when the tusker broke into the structure late at night, crushing and killing four people.
“The deceased include a husband and wife and their two young children. One family member managed to escape, while another suffered a crushed leg and has been admitted to hospital in critical condition,” an official was quoted by Hindustan Times as saying.
Forest officials said two other deaths were reported from different villages in the same block.
“One person was killed in an elephant attack in Badapaseya village, while another died in Lampaisai village. The identities of the deceased in these two villages are yet to be confirmed,” an official said.
On Monday night, another tusker had killed three members of a family in Goelkera, also in West Singhbhum. Forest department officials said that at least 17 people have died in elephant attacks in the district in the past seven days. Repeated attempts to drive the animals away from human settlements have failed so far.
Fear gripped the entire Jeteya police station area in the Noamundi block following a rampage by a wild tusker, officials said.
“Six people were killed in separate incidents across different villages, while four others sustained serious injuries. The most horrific incident occurred in Bawadia village, where the elephant targeted a single family,” one of them said.
The tusker involved in Tuesday’s incidents, believed to have strayed from its herd, was sighted in Gitikendu village around 4 am on Wednesday and later moved towards Katepara village in the Jagannathpur police station area.
“An alert has been issued in surrounding villages due to the elephant’s continued movement. Specially trained teams from West Bengal and Gujarat have been called in to capture the tusker. Quick Response Teams from all forest divisions have also been deployed, and efforts are on to drive the elephant back into dense forest areas,” an official said.
The incidents were confirmed by Noamundi range forest officer Jitendra Singh, who said multiple measures were being taken to push elephants out of villages.
“Two teams from Bankura in West Bengal are already working and one team from Odisha has been requisitioned. The elephant is very fast, and it is difficult to ascertain whether a single elephant or a herd is creating the problem. When we manage to control one location, the animal reaches another village before we can get there,” Singh said.
It is not yet clear whether the elephant had turned aggressive due to stress or injury, he said.
“We have not been able to ascertain whether the elephant has become mad or not. Once that is determined, further action will be taken as per standard protocol,” Singh said.
The repeated attacks highlight the growing conflict between humans and elephants as villages, agricultural fields and infrastructure increasingly expand into traditional forest corridors, officials said.
Fragmentation of elephant habitats has forced animals to stray into human settlements in search of food, often with fatal consequences.
Aboobacker Siddique, forest secretary, Jharkhand, said on Tuesday that people are being shifted to safer places in view of the elephant attacks.
“Damage to crops and properties is being compensated, but our focus is to prevent loss of human life. Positive results are expected within a day or two,” he said.
