NILGIRIS: A 65-year-old man was trampled to death by a wild elephant at Machikolli in Devarsholai Panchayat near Gudalur on Wednesday night.
The deceased, B Arumugam, was found dead on the road by his son near their house at 8 pm on Wednesday.
Arumugam’s relatives and local people didn’t allow the police to take the body to the Gudalur Government Hospital for postmortem.
The protesters relented after District Forest Officer (Gudalur) Venkatesh Prabhu and Gudalur Deputy Superintendent of Police Vasantha Kumar assured a meeting with the Gudalur Revenue Divisional Officer Sangeetha on Thursday,
After more than five hours of protest, the body was shifted to the hospital by 2 am on Thursday. The same morning, a group of people took out a rally from the hospital to the RDO office condemning the forest department for inadequate steps to prevent elephant intrusion into human settlements. They also held a protest before the office. \
RDO K Sangeetha told the representatives of the protesters that `10 lakh compensation and a temporary work would be given to Arumugam’s son or daughter. The official also told the group that she has directed the forest department to carry out maintenance of elephant-proof trenches and engage staff to divert the elephants into the forest.
“We have asked the residents to cooperate and discuss the issues related to the forest department to solve human-animal conflict by convening a village-level committee meeting with the help of revenue and forest department officials,” she said.