Elephant calf found dead

AGARTALA: The Tripura forest department and police have launched separate investigations into the suspected killing of a five-year-old elephant calf in the Purba Godaibari area of Kalyanpur in West Tripura on Thursday.

The authorities are waiting for the autopsy report to ascertain the cause of death.

According to police, villagers in the Kalyanpur area at the foothills of the Athuramura, angry after suffering repeated crop damage by elephants over the past several years, sprayed insecticides on their fields in what might have been an act of revenge.

Police said they were informed about the carcass by the villagers on Thursday.

The forest department has increased food supply in the forests of Athuramura, considered to be an important elephant corridor, forest minister Naresh Jamatia said. "The forest department has dug up ponds and started large-scale plantation of trees in the core forest area," the minister said, adding, "If adequate food is arranged for the elephants, they will not stray."

The Tripura government is also planning to set up an elephant reserve at Gandhari in Gomati district.

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