Locals agitate over elephant killing in Bengal

KOLKATA - People of Nayagram town in West Bengal’s West Midnapore district staged a demonstration Sunday protesting against forest department officials shooting dead an elephant and injuring another.

While the forest officials claimed that the elephant killed Saturday was a rogue, the villagers claimed there was nothing abnormal in its behaviour.

“The elephant had been killing people for quite some time. So, under the Wildlife Protection Act we declared it as a rogue. Meanwhile, it entered Nayagram,” state Principal Conservator of Forests Atanu Raha told reporters here.

“When our hunters tracked it, they found it had another elephant as companion. When they shot dead the rogue, the other elephant charged at them. And in self-defence they had to shoot at the second pachyderm also,” Raha added.

Raha said he had received reports that the locals were agitating.

“I will enquire whether they tried to tranquilise the second elephant first,” he said.