ROGUE WILD ELEPHANT DISRUPTS FUNERAL, STOMPS MAN TO DEATH

A 65-year-old man was trampled to death by a rogue female elephant while performing the last rites of his cousin at a burial ground located at Karumalai tea estate in Valparai here on Saturday evening.

The deceased was identified as S Velusamy, a retired tea estate employee. His cousin Rajendran, 67, of the same locality, had died of some ailment on Friday evening. Velusamy, along with other kin and neighbours of the deceased, took the body to a burial ground located at Karumalai estate in a tractor on Saturday evening. While they were performing last rites, a wild elephant charged towards them and the people ran for their life, abandoning the body at the burial ground.

Velusamy was, however, not able to run and the elephant trampled him to death. When alerted, forest officials reached the spot but the grieving relatives of Velusamy didn’t allow them to take the body to the Valparai government hospital for postmortem. They also staged a protest, urging the forest department to protect them from wild elephant attacks and also to chase the rogue elephant away into the reserve forest area.

Valparai police also reached the spot and held talks with the kin of the elephant attack victim. The kin finally agreed to take the body to the government hospital and the body was handed over to them on Sunday after the postmortem.

The forest department, meanwhile, brought kumki Kaleem from Topslip elephant camp to Valparai to chase the rogue elephant away into the reserve forest area from the tea estate. “We have deployed additional forest department field staff at the Karumalai tea estate to protect the labourers residing in the quarters. We have already initiated steps to chase away the elephant to the reserve forest and are likely to bring another kumki from Topslip elephant camp to assist us in the mission,” said V Subbaiah, district forest officer, Pollachi forest division.

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