DHARMAPURI: A farmer from Periya Morasupatti village near Karimangalam died after he was attacked by a wild elephant on Wednesday. Over the past few days, the Palacode Forest team has been monitoring the movement of two male elephants in the area. On Wednesday night the elephants entered Karimangalam near Sanjeevaraya Hill.
In the early hours of Thursday, the forest team found the elephant near Morasupatti. Shortly after the elephant left the village, the people spotted V Vedi (60) dead with injury marks on the body and informed police. The body was sent for postmortem to the Dharmapuri Medical College Hospital. Sources said Vedi was attacked by one of the elephants when he was relieving himself in the open.
Palacode Forest Ranger P Natraj told TNIE, “Usually elephants move about in the night and in the forest where visibility is very low it is very difficult to keep track of the elephant. By morning we spotted the elephants and were following their movements. The incident could have taken place just before dawn and the farmer might have encountered the elephant when the visibility was low. We have provided an initial solatium of Rs 50,000 to the family.”
Meanwhile, residents of Karimangalam urged the forest department to chase away the elephants. M Murugan, a resident, said, “It is very rare to see elephants in Karimangalam because to reach here the elephants have to cross the NH 844 connecting Salem- Bengaluru. But now the migration of elephants to our parts has become common. We urge the forest department to ensure these elephants do not cross the highway. Moreover, Karimangalam is not part of the elephant corridor.”
Natraj said, “There have been few instances of elephants passing by Karimangalam and it is not uncommon. We are taking efforts to bring the elephants back to the Palacode forest area and divert them to other parts of the forest.”