Jumbo rage on rise: Woman mauled to death

Total human casualties in elephant raids rise to seven in as many months.

ROURKELA: In a gruesome incident, a woman was violently mauled to death by an elephant in Kuanrmunda range of Rourkela Forest Division (RFD) in Sundargarh district on the wee hours of Monday. With this, the total human casualties in elephant raids within the RFD limits rose to seven in as many months.

As per reports, the house of victim Basumati Badaik (45),  located at a secluded area of Bijubandh village, was attacked by two elephants at about 2 am. As Basumati ran for life, she was caught by an elephant. Her body was badly mutilated before being ripped into four pieces.
Confirming the incident, Rourkela Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Sanjeet Kumar said when the
two elephants were attacking

Basumati’s abode, three other jumbos were raiding a nearby house where Forest staff were present to ensure safe passage for its occupants. He informed that all the five elephants have holed up in the nearby Brahmani Tarang Reserve Forest.
The DFO said an additional mobile unit has been deployed to track the movements of the five elephants. Kumar admitted that in recent times, the elephants are increasingly showing a change of behaviour and turning violent.

Notably, the same herd of five elephants had raided a house at Sialjore village of Kuanrmunda range and killed a woman Samari Pradhan (35) and her son Shatrughan (6) on July 12. Samari’s body was mutilated beyond recognition.

Earlier on June 8, one Durga Charan Sigh was fleeing with his 18-month-old daughter when he was attacked by elephants at Jhirpani of Banki range under RFD limits. The baby daughter was killed in the attack. Before this, three other villagers were killed in elephant attacks in RFD limits.  
A few days back, villagers of Kuanrmunda range were trained on use of chilly smoke techniques to keep the elephants at bay. However, they are yet to put the techniques to use.

Two tusks recovered

Angul: Satkosia Wildlife Division officials on Sunday  afternoon recovered two tusks worth over D10,000 from the residential premises of one Basanta Sahu of Naleswar village. However, the officials could not arrest Sahu, suspected to be one of the prime accused in the illegal tusk trade, as he had obtained advance bail from the court, sources said. On February 5, a sub-adult tusker aged around 10 years died of bullet injuries in Satkosia jungle. Two of the animal’s tusks were missing when the Forest staff found the carcass. Enquiries revealed involvement of three accused in the crime. While one of the accused, Padmalochan Sahu, was arrested by Forest officials, two others absconded and managed to obtain anticipatory bail.

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