ROURKELA: An elderly person was killed by a herd of 17 elephants at Sankulagaja village near Bisra forest in Sundargarh district on Tuesday evening.
The deceased has been identified as Kandra Pradhan (62) of Nuagaon block.
Sources said the elephant herd had raided Pradhan’s house in search of food. The animals caught hold of Pradhan, while his other family members managed to run to safety. The elephants then thrashed him to death.
With this, the number of human causalities due to elephants under Rourkela forest division rose to four this year. Divisional Forest Officer of Rourkela, Sanjeet Kumar, said the elephant herd was last seen holed up in the North Sukuda forest.
2 Nabbed for Fraud
Two suspended officers of Sundargarh District Central Cooperative Bank Ltd (SDCCB) were arrested on Wednesday on charges of funds embezzlement. They are Subash Chandra Rath and Nityanand Naik.
Sambalpur division of Vigilance has registered five cases against the two after receipt of allegations about misappropriation of funds to the tune of `18 crore at Rourkela branch of SDCCB.
The sleuths detected illegal transaction of `56.94 lakh during 2004-05 in which, pay orders were issued without reflecting them in the bank ledgers.
Similarly, the Rourkela unit of Vigilance detected fraudulent transactions of `10 lakh.