A 30-year-old man was killed by a wild elephant when he was taking photos of a herd of pachyderms being chased away in a forest in Balrampur district of Chhattisgarh, officials said today.
The incident, in which another person was injured, took place last evening when local residents were driving away a herd of 11 elephants in Baskepi village forests, Divisional Forest Officer (Balrampur) B P Singh said.
After getting information about the movement of elephants towards their village, the residents rushed to chase away the wild animals back into the jungle.
Meanwhile, an elephant got agitated over the commotion created by the villagers and charged towards them. One of the villagers, who was clicking pictures of the elephants through his mobile phone, could not get out of the way of unruly pachyderm and got crushed under its feet, the DFO said.
The deceased was identified as Naseem Khan, he added.
Another youth, identified only as Shambhu, suffered injuries on his legs after he fell into a pit while trying to escape from the spot, he added.
The kin of the deceased were given an instant relief amount of Rs 25,000 by the Forest Department, Singh said, adding rest of the compensation of Rs 3.75 lakh will be disbursed to them within a week.
The thick forested northern Chhattisgarh, comprising districts of Surguja, Balrampur, Korba, Raigarh, Jashpur and Korea, is notorious for incidents of human-elephant conflict.
The region has witnessed several killings of tribals and widespread damages to houses and crops by rogue elephants in the past years.
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