In Bandhavgarh reserve, where 10 elephants died recently, tuskers kill two people, wound one

Umaria Divisional Forest Officer Vivek Singh said that anything conclusive about whether the elephants are part of the ill-fated herd of 10 would be established “after collection of data”.

However, forest officials said that while they are not suspected to be part of this herd, they could be part of another that came to the spot where the elephants died in search of millets, sources said.

“There was a herd of 25 elephants which had turned up two days ago in search of kodo millets and were chased away. They had crossed the road and began entering the core area. However, three of them may have been separated from the group and were involved in the deaths (of two people). All elephants are being tracked by a monitoring team,” a senior official of the BTR told The Indian Express.

On October 29, four wild elephants were found dead in Sankhani and Bakeli under Khitoli range of the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve (BTR), while four died on October 30 and two on October 31.

Their post-mortem found large quantities of kodo millets in their stomachs. It also found some toxicity.

On Friday, a top forest department official said samples collected from the fields nearby as well as from the elephant will be sent to ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research Institute in Izatnagar in UP’s Bareli and MP’s forensic laboratory in Sagar.

Apart from this, the National Tiger Conservation Authority and MP’s state tiger strike force are also probing the deaths.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav has directed MP’s Minister of State for Forests Dileep Ahirwar, Additional Chief Secretary (forest) Ashok Barnwal and the state’s Head of Forest Force Aseem Shrivastava to visit Umaria district and submit a report on the deaths caused by the elephants. The government has also announced a compensation of Rs 8 lakh for the families of the deceased.