Villagers kill elephant calf, tuskers trample man to death in Chhattisgarh

RAIPUR: Human-animal conflict is turning into a wild war in north Chhattisgarh. A group of villagers allegedly killed an elephant calf in Korba district after which the herd went on a revenge rampage and crushed to death a man from the same village.
Some days ago, a 12-month calf in Katghora forest range was allegedly killed and buried in a farm by a group of men from Bania village, 75km from Korba town and 250km north of Raipur. A relative of the farm owner even called forest officials to say that villagers will collect donations and ‘compensate forest department’ for the slain elephant calf, DFO Premlata Yadav said. This is an indication of just how brutal the human-animal tussle is in these parts.
In the audio clip with the forest official, a man is heard saying that the forest department pays Rs 6 lakh compensation when a human is killed by an elephant, “this time, we will give compensation to the forest department, that too Rs 8 lakh”.
With information gathered from sources, foresters went to exhume the carcass, and saw fresh paddy planted on the patch of land that covered the grave. They dug up the carcass and sent it for autopsy. How it was killed and exactly when is yet unknown.
On Thursday night, a herd of 44 elephants — the only one in the region and the one to which the calf belonged — stormed into the village. They trampled villager Pintawar Singh and three of his cows to death.