Amid rise in man-elephant conflict during the harvesting season, a 49-year-old man Nandeswar Gogoi was trampled to death by a herd of wild elephants at Abhaypur village in Namrup area of Dibrugarh district on Saturday night. The victim who is survived by his wife and three children as returning from the Namrup town market at around 9pm when he encountered the herd of wild jumbos on the road who trampled him to death. The wild pachyderms had reportedly strayed out from the nearby Jeypore rainforest. Locals said that they informed the nearest forest range office immediately after the incident but forest staff reached the incident site almost three hours later. The body was later sent for post-mortem.
The deceased’s brother while speaking to media appealed to the state government to provide compensation to the victim’s family and to take responsibility of educating the children.
Ranger officer of Jeypore forest range Puspadhar Buragohain said that as per government norms a compensation of Rs 4 lakh will be provided to the next of kin of the victim by the environment and forest department after receipt of post-mortem report and relevant documents.
According to locals, intrusion by wild elephants from the Jeypore reserve forest has become a regular phenomenon in the area during the paddy harvesting season. Earlier also there have been several incidents of man-elephant conflicts in the area. Wildlife experts have attributed the growing instances of elephant depredation in human settlements to shrinking forest cover and encroachment on elephant corridors which have forced the pachyderms to move out from their ecological space in search of food.
