Ajit Karn
Ranchi: Forest officials say that in the last 12 days, a tusker is thought to have killed 16 people in five districts in the state of Jharkhand. On Tuesday, four people were killed in one block in the district of Ranchi.
Because of this, the Ranchi government has banned gatherings of more than five people in the Itki block under Section 144 Cr PC to prevent more deaths, said Srikant Verma, the divisional forest officer in Ranchi.
Villagers in the Itki block have been told to stay in their homes, especially at dawn and dusk. He also told them not to get too close to any elephants.
“People from the village are gathering around the elephant, which killed someone today. “To stop them, the Ranchi administration today put Section 144 Cr PC into effect in the Itki block,” Verma told PTI. Sasikar Samanta, the principal chief conservator of forest (wildlife), said that the forest department is doing everything it can to deal with the elephant, which is thought to have killed 16 people in the past 12 days in Hazaribag, Ramgarh, Chatra, Lohardaga, and Ranchi districts. To do this, they have brought in an expert team from West Bengal.
“We’ve put together a group of forest officers from four divisions, and the Ranchi conservator of forest is in charge. The committee will figure out if all 16 people were killed by the same elephant. If the committee approves it, we’ll decide in a day or two, he told PTI.
“It looks like the elephant is acting in a strange way. Samanta said, “The committee will look into whether the elephant is killing people on purpose or whether the people are to blame for their deaths.” Four people, including two women, were killed by the elephant in Lohardaga district on Monday and one on Sunday. It looked like it got into the Itki block of Ranchi, which is about 25 km from the capital city, on Monday night. According to Verma, it killed four people, including two women, and hurt one on Tuesday morning.
The DFO in Ranchi said that it is likely that the same elephant killed five people in Hazaribag about 12 days ago and then moved to Ramgarh, where it killed one person in the Gola area. The animal is then said to have gone to Chatra and killed someone else there.
He said, “We are looking at the photos and other things to see if it is the same elephant.”
Arvind Kumar, the divisional forest officer (DFO) for Lohardaga, told PTI that a team of experts from West Bengal’s Bankura district had been hired to drive the tusker deep into the forest. When asked, he said that there are many ways to tell an elephant apart. “We have a tracking system where each district gives information about where elephants move in their own areas. We also have pictures and videos of the big planes. This elephant has tusks, and so did the elephant that killed people in Hazaribagh, Lohardagga, and Ranchi.
“We’ll compare the height and other details to see if it’s the same one,” he said.
A person from the Forest Department said that each victim’s family will get 25,000 in aid right away. After going through the required government steps, each victim’s family will get 3.75 lakh in compensation.
Reports say that 133 people have died in elephant attacks in Jharkhand in 2021-22, which is a big jump from the 84 who died in 2020-21.
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In response to an RTI request, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate recently said that 462 people have died in man-elephant conflicts in Jharkhand since 2017, including 133 in 2021-22.
