3 elephant tusks recovered from house at Tripura’s Unakoti, suspect absconding

In January this year, the police lodged a case after the carcass of an elephant with a few body parts missing was recovered from the Pramodenagar area under the Kalyanpur Forest Division, falling under the Teliamura sub-division in Khowai district of Tripura.

According to a report by the state forest department from a few years ago, Tripura has 102 elephants, including 42 wild elephants and 60 in captivity. A new elephant survey was undertaken in March 2022, but the reports could not be finalised since a Covid lockdown was imposed soon after.

Tripura villages have seen frequent elephant-human conflicts. As part of setting up natural defence mechanisms for villagers, the state government started a project to keep bees in agricultural fields to thwart elephant attacks, as jumbos are known to fear stingy insects.

The government initiated projects to cultivate elephant fodder in the jungles, including the planting of bamboo and bananas, the establishment of watering holes, and the construction of other infrastructure as part of the check dams built in the forests.