Barely 24 hours after an adult male elephant was electrocuted in north Bengal, a second one died the same way on Wednesday at Khunia forest range in the Nagrakata police station area of the Jalpaiguri district.
This is the fourth incident reported from the Dooars region in less than two months.
Two of these four elephants touched cables that were connected illegally to high tension overhead wires by local villagers. They lay these cables on the ground to drive away animals from farmland.
On Wednesday morning, a 25-year-old male elephant was found dead at Bamandanga tea estate area. Forest officers said the elephant touched a low lying wire and not a cable placed by villagers to save vegetation. They described the incident as a fatal outcome of negligence by those who installed the power supply system at that spot.
A 15-year-old tusker was found dead on Tuesday on a small patch of land near a house at Ramjhora tea estate in Birpara police station area. It touched an illegally powered cable.
Nisha Goswami, divisional forest officer at Gorumara, said “a low lying electric cable killed the pachyderm on Wednesday.”
Latiful Islam, a local panchayat member, said “The elephant must have entered the village to eat jack fruit and got electrocuted.”
The last two incidents were reported at Buxa tiger Reserve forest and Madarihat near Jaldapara National Park on June 16 and June 24 respectively.
