Elephant attack claims forest worker’s life

A female elephant, accompanied by her newborn cub, trampled on the forest worker in front of four other forest guards who were with him at the time of the incident.

MP, 5 Nov 2023, Alipurduar: A forest worker died while chasing an elephant that had entered a locality. Rithe Subba (44) had allegedly fired the service rifle into the air during the emergency, but the gun did not work. 

A female elephant, accompanied by her newborn cub, trampled on the forest worker in front of four other forest guards who were with him at the time of the incident. Rithe Subba succumbed to injuries after being rushed to Falakata Superspeciality Hospital in Alipurduar. 

The incident occurred around 11 pm on Saturday in the Jagendra Nagar area, adjacent to the Bangdaki beat of the west range of Jaldapara National Park. On the same night, two other forest workers faced a similar situation while chasing elephants in the Moiradanga Beat of the West Range. 

Despite firing their guns into the air, the guns failed to work. Two forest guards, Samarjeet Burman and Rafiqul Islam, managed to survive. With these two incidents coming to the fore, fear has gripped forest workers, especially forest guards who need to venture into deep forests or need to chase wild animals that venture into human habitats. 

In the past four days, five civilians have lost their lives in elephant attacks in Alipurduar and Cooch Behar. Among the victims is this forest worker. Forester Gobinda Bahadur Subba lamented: “Rithe fired the gun when the female elephant with the calf appeared before him, but the gun failed to fire. 

Life was lost before our eyes; how many more trials must we endure?” Navjeet De, Assistant Wildlife Warden (AWLW) of Jaldapara National Park, described it as an unfortunate accident and assured that the family of the deceased forest worker would receive compensation in accordance with government norms.” 

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