BANKURA/PURULIA: An elephant herd has struck terror in the jungle on the Bankura-Purulia border , killing at least four persons in three months and forcing people of several villages to live on trees.

On Monday, the herd killed a 30-year-old cowherd in Bankura's Benachapra village and had critically injured another man in Purulia's Jhalda the previous night. Many villagers in a 30 sq km radius in Jhalda block - like Hensla, Kormadih, Kanakpur, Durgu, Ghoshra, Pusti and Keribera - are living in machans on trees, both to escape being attacked at home and to protect their ripening crops.

The herd has come from the Dalma range in Jharkhand and is only following its traditional migration route. The man-animal conflict in this area has intensified over the last two decades, with over 200 people and 38 elephants being killed in a decade, but this year seems to be the worst. Terrified villagers say they have never seen so many elephants as this year. They are unwittingly luring the elephants into human habitation - and conflict - by cutting ripening crops and storing them at home to save them from the hungry herds. Some 30,000 villagers are living in fear.

On Sunday evening, 47-year-old Labin Mahato of Chatamaguto village was returning home when an elephant grabbed him with his trunk and smashed him on the ground. He is in a critical condition, with blood clotted in his lungs. On Monday morning, Amar Sardar went out to graze cattle in the forest and did not return. Villagers went looking for him and found his body crushed to pulp.

Madhusudan Mukherjee, ADFO of Panchet division in Bankura, said a herd of elephants has been roaming near the spot where Sardar's body was found. "The body has been sent to Bankura Medical College Hospital for post-mortem. His family will get compensation according to forest rules," he added.

This is the fourth death in three months. Pancharam Kuiri and Naresh Kumar of Hensla village, who are staying on treetops, said: "We are scared to live in our houses." They are armed with flaming torches and firecrackers. Karamdi's Ananta Mahato and Basanta Mahato said they climb up the trees before sundown. "Elephants move at night and they move so silently that it is impossible to hear them until they are right upon you. It's safer up here," they said.

Bankura and Purulia jungles did not have an elephant population. Dalma herds would migrate this way for food and go back. But since the 1980s, some elephants started staying back. The migrations also increased due to mining in Odisha and Jharkhand.