A 57-year-old tribal man was trampled to death by a wild elephant, and a female elephant was found dead in separate incidents near Anaikatti in Coimbatore district on Sunday, June 18, 2023.
According to the Forest Department, the victim was N. Maruthan, a resident of Senguttai tribal settlement in the Periyanaickenpalayam forest range. Officials said received an alert from the tribal community around 6.15 p.m. on Sunday, stating that Maruthan, who had gone to the reserve forest area in search of missing cattle, had not returned.
Forest Department staff, led by Periyanaickenpalayam forest range officer M. Saravanan launched a search for the missing person at 6 a.m. on Monday. They found Maruthan dead ,inside the forest around 6.45 a.m. After being alerted by the Forest Department, the Karamadai police reached the spot and took the body to the Government Hospital, Mettupalayam, for a post-mortem in the presence of the Tholampalayam village administrative officer.
Female elephant found dead
Meanwhile, a female elephant was found dead on poramboke land close to a reserve forest near Anaikatti on Sunday evening. Forest Department staff spotted the elephant carcass near the Dhumanur tribal settlement during a patrol around 6 p.m. on Sunday. The Department said that the carcass was found around 300 metres away from the boundary of the Anaikatti south reserve forest, falling under the Coimbatore forest range. The reasons for the death of the elephant is yet to be ascertained.
The Senguttai and Dhumanur tribal settlements fall in the Anaikatti North – Anaikatti South elephant corridor area. The Hindu, in a recent report, had highlighted, how developmental activities in the corridor area pose a threat to the free movement of elephants and escalate negative interactions between humans and wild elephants.
With the deaths of the man and the elephant on Sunday, the number of people who have lost their lives in elephant attacks, and the number of elephants that have died in the Coimbatore Forest Division this year have increased to seven and 13, respectively.
