Killing of an elephant calf outrages conservationists

Lily

B.R
Staff member
Guwahati: Wildlife experts and conservationists yesterday were outraged over the brutal killing of a wild elephant calf that was clobbered to death by irate villagers after it entered a human settlement area of Assam.

More than 200 villagers, armed with sticks, bamboo poles and ropes went berserk, charging the baby elephant along a paddy field in Morigaon district's Gubah village, about 60km east of Assam's main city of Guwahati in India's northeast.

The incident took place Tuesday in front of at least two armed personnel, a forest ranger and a policeman, with the more than hour long gory drama filmed by an amateur videographer.

Barbaric act

"This is an outrageous incident, it is purely barbaric to find villagers literally torturing the helpless elephant to death and that too in front of two security people," Kushal Konwar Sarma, a noted elephant expert who also teaches at the College of Veterinary Science in Guwahati, told IANS.

Images beamed on both local and national TV channels were disturbing — villagers surrounding the calf from all sides and people literally pulling the tail and others attacking the elephant with sticks.

The calf finally gave up its fight to escape with the villagers tying its legs with a nylon rope.

 
Top