JHARGRAM FURY AFTER STONES RAIN ON ANIMAL Elephant loses calf, kills onlooker

KINSUK BASU, TT, 18 May 2019,  Lalgarh: A 33-year-old man was killed in Lalgarh in Jhargram on Friday after an elephant picked him up with its trunk and flung him to the ground.

Sailen Mahato was in a crowd that had gathered to watch the elephant deliver a calf after being separated from its herd.

After the birth, the mother tried to nudge the calf into the jungle where the rest of the herd had entered. The newborn apparently couldn't withstand the exhaustion and died.

The angry mother then ran at the crowd that was jeering and shouting and allegedly pelting stones, wrapped its trunk around Sailen, picked him up and threw him on the ground.

Sources in the Midnapore forest division said Sailen Mahato was among the 100 odd villagers who had gathered at Pakhiband forest under Lalgarh range near Dharampur on Friday morning watching, jeering and pelting stones. The elephant apparently ran towards the crowd, most of whom were busy capturing the event on their mobile cameras. Sailen came in the way of the elephant, police said.

Eyewitnesses told the police that the elephant grunted and charged at Sailen, picked him up with its trunk and flung him to the ground even before some forest offi- The elephant with its newborn cials could rush to his rescue. Sailen fell on the ground and succumbed to his injuries. Police later removed him to a hospital nearby where doctors declared him dead.

"Police from Lalgarh have sent the body for post mortem. The family would receive an ex-gratia payment in keeping with the state government's policy," said S.K. Berwal, divisional forest officer, Midnapore.

Forest department officials said the elephant was part of a herd of four elephants that came from Jharkhand to Jhargram on Thursday evening. By night some of the local residents had flagged their concern about the herd to the forest department officials after the pachyderms strayed into farmlands at Dharampur in Lalgarh and apparently destroyed crops. A section of villagers even complained to the police that they couldn't move out of their houses as the herd kept roaming around.

On Friday morning as the herd started ambling away into the forest, the pregnant elephant chose a dried up canal as the site for delivering the calf.

By then a crowd had gathered around the place to watch the calf being born.

"After walking some distance the calf suddenly collapsed and didn't stand up," said a forest official. "Even as we tried to stop the crowd from jeering, some of them started pelting stones towards the elephant. After she realised that the calf was dead, it became furiousForest department sources said guards were outnumbered by the crowd and could do little to prevent the death of Sailen..