india

Updated: Oct 13, 2019 11:23 IST

A forest guard was killed by a herd of wild elephants in Singrauli district of Madhya Pradesh on Friday, officials said.

This is the second death in the past three days after the elephants from Sarguja elephant reserve in Chhattisgarh started entering in Madhya Pradesh on intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday and running amok in at least six villages of Singrauli district.

The forest department, which is issuing warning continuously for the past three days, issued fresh warning on Saturday that more elephants are coming from the Chhattisgarh. A forest guard was killed by a new herd of elephants that entered on Thursday, said an official.

The elephant movement created panic among the villagers of Barahpan, Urati, Jaraha, Gobha and other villages and they left their houses abandoned.

The pamphlets explaining dos and don’ts have been distributed among villagers by the forest department. “The wild elephants from Sarguja Elephant Sanctuary have been using this corridor to move to the jungles of UP for many years but some villagers have got lease of land under forest rights act and built their semi-kutcha houses in the area,” Singh said.

The Villagers have been asked through pamphlets not to cook food without putting the lid on it, remove mahua from everywhere and to vacate all the houses, which come in the 1-2 km periphery of the movement of elephants.

Singrauli district collector KV Chaudhary said the situation got tense in half-a-dozen villages and the movement of elephants caused damage to the property as well as the crops.