Gadchiroli Dec. 29 (District Correspondent) A shocking incident has come to light at Shankarnagar around 8 kilometres from Armori where wild elephants which once again returned from Gondia district a few days ago and entered into Gadchiroli district, killed an old woman early this morning.
The name of the dead woman is Kaushalya Radhakant Mandal (67), a resident of village Shankarnagar in Armori taluka. With this, the number of people having been killed in elephant attack has risen to three in the district.
According to reports, the Mandal family was sleeping in a house near the forest in Shankarnagar when they were woken up by the sound of wild elephants. As soon as they realized that the elephants were approaching towards them, all the family members started to run towards the village to save their lives. However, Kaushalya Mandal was caught in the clutches of elephants and unfortunately died.
Meanwhile, the forest officials reached the spot and conducted a panchnama and sent the dead body to the hospital for post-mortem. The people in the area are quite frightened over the rising incidents of elephant’s attacks as they are damaging their houses, crops and putting the lives also at danger.
The elephants have created havoc in the district for the last couple of years and have damaged crops, houses and other property. The elephants have been making the rounds of Gadchiroli and adjoining Gondiya district every now and then.
The residents of Shankarnagar, Pathargota, Salmara etc which come under Jogisakhra forest range and are situated near the forest areas have been spending sleepless nights for the last few days after the arrival of the wild elephants in the area. The people are quite enraged over the forest department following the incident.
