BERHAMPUR/PHULBANI: A tribal man was trampled to death by a tusker at Dangaeju village under Badimunda panchayat in Tikabali area of Kandhamal district on Tuesday evening. The deceased was identified as Pradip Pradhan (45).
According to reports, Pradip was staying with his family in a temporary hut near his farmland, where he cultivated vegetables and other crops. On Tuesday evening, his wife had gone to Dangaeju village for cooking and Pradip was alone in the hut. All of a sudden, a wild tusker reportedly entered the hut and attacked Pradip. The elephant trampled him to death, leaving his body severely mutilated.
Following the incident, villagers accused the Forest department of failing to take adequate preventive measures including deployment of elephant squads in vulnerable areas. They alleged that villagers are not being properly alerted about elephant movement.
Claiming that around eight persons have been killed by tuskers in G Udayagiri forest range area, the locals demanded immediate steps to prevent further human-elephant conflicts.
On being informed about the incident, G Udayagiri range officer Manikeshwari Patnaik along with a team reached the spot for investigation. Later, Tikabali police seized Pradip’s body and sent it to the district headquarters hospital at Phulbani for postmortem.
IIC of Tikabali police station Shivaranjan Singh said an unnatural death case has been registered and further investigation into the incident is underway.
Forest officials said an immediate ex-gratia of Rs 1 lakh would be provided to the bereaved family within a day or two. The remaining Rs 9 lakh assistance would be released after submission of the postmortem report.