Centre seeks report as elephant dies in mob attack in Bengal
HT reported on Tuesday that the elephant died after mobs pierced her with a flaming spear hours after another pachyderm allegedly killed a resident on the outskirts of the town.
The Union environment ministry has sought a detailed report from West Bengal chief wildlife warden Debal Ray on the brutal killing of an adult female elephant with a flaming spear by a mob in the state’s Jhargram district last week, officials said, as the incident triggered an outrage and renewed calls among activists for improved mechanisms to protect animals and people who live in areas with thick wildlife populations.
HT reported on Tuesday that the elephant died after mobs pierced her with a flaming spear hours after another pachyderm allegedly killed a resident on the outskirts of the town. Local police said they registered a first information report (FIR) against unidentified people and that a probe was on to identify those behind the attack.
“We have sought a detailed report. The chief wildlife warden has informed us about the death of a person and a female elephant. The remaining elephants could get connected with the main herd. The chief wildlife warden has said that two offenders have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the attack,” a ministry official said, seeking anonymity.
Ray also said that two people have been arrested in connection with the attack so far. “Based on our own intelligence network and video footage we gathered, the forest department has started a massive search operation to identify the accused. Two people were arrested on Tuesday evening,” Ray said.
A senior forest department officer, who did not wish to be identified, said: “The Union ministry has asked us for a detailed report. The subject of forest comes under the concurrent list. We send reports to the Centre in case of animal deaths. The elephant is a schedule-I animal.” Schedule I animals are endangered species that are protected under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972.
According to animal rights groups, six elephants – two males, two females and two calves – entered Raj College colony in the town early on August 15. Soon, one of the males allegedly killed a senior citizen resident around 7.10am in a neighbouring colony. This reportedly prompted the forest department to call for the local “hulla team” – a group of people tasked with chasing away large animals, most often using percussion instruments or torches. However, on this occasion, the teams, roughly 35-strong, came armed with flaming torches and hot iron rods.
The elephant died around eight hours after the attack, following efforts to rehabilitate it by the forest department, activists said.
Purported videos of the incident showed the teams initially shot one of the male elephants, who was passing through a football ground with multiple tranquiliser darts. It is unclear if the same elephant killed the man.
Around the same time, others in the “hulla” party chased down a female elephant, stabbing her with a burning spear. The videos showed the spear hit her lower back. It further showed her struggling to get up as the torch, which had pierced into her skin, had burned her back. Other videos showed her dragging her hind legs, even as people continued to attack her. The pachyderm, writhing in pain, eventually collapsed.
HT could not independently verify the authenticity of the videos. To be sure, the use of spikes is banned to manage human-animal conflicts. According to a 2018 Supreme Court order, “as an emergency measure, under the direct control of the forest department, mashaals (torches) may be used for the time being only to avoid any deaths and crop damage that may take place and ensure the proper movement of elephants in the corridors.”
The Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (FIAPO) has demanded the Bengal government initiate a probe into the killing.
“Human-Elephant conflict, entirely because of bad policy, that ignores both the human and the animal interest – which can both co-exist, have turned the daily on ground elephant incursions into war like scenarios. It appears that now elephants and humans are at war with each other – and the recent brutal murder of the wild elephant, a gory, unfortunate reality that has left the state forest department, yet again, with blood on their hands,” FIAPO trustee, an advocate and Centre for Research on Animal Rights founder Alok Hisarwala said in a statement.
The Bengal forest department must immediately constitute a committee, comprising experts on human-elephant conflict mitigation, including NGOs working on the ground in Bengal and other states where successful measures have been deployed, to probe the incident and suspend all “hulla” committees until a fresh protocol, devised by experts trained on mitigation of conflict, is put into place, FIAPO demanded.