Another jumbo dies on track

Elephants’ death on the railway tracks continuing, another died on Haridwar-Dehradun tracks near Motichur forest range just four kms ahead of Raiwala junction on Tuesday, the fourth such death over the past one and half year. It is learnt that female elephant aged around 34 years was mowed down by speeding Kathgodam Express around midnight. The forest officers claimed that they had warned the loco pilot of the jumbo movement around the tracks and asked him to bring down the speed of the train sufficiently, a warning which the loco pilot refused to heed. However, the wild life lovers rejected such claims, saying that it was nothing but the long-continuing pass the buck game.

It is further learnt that a team of doctors was rushed to the spot where the jumbo was lying injured immediately after the incident, but it succumbed around 5 am.

Quizzed over continuation of such on the track deaths of the elephants, the principal chief conservator of forests, Uttarakhand, Jai Raj termed the death very unfortunate. “We are all deeply sad and an emergency meeting has been called on Wednesday where the officers of Wildlife Institute of India would be present. We would discuss things threadbare and a strategy would be chalked out to stop recurrence of such unfortunate deaths. We would find out whether forest patrolling is continuing and whether there is a breach in our , coordination with the railway officials,” he said.


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