A 38-year-old woman was killed by a wild elephant in O’Valley in Gudalur forest division on late Friday night. This is the second such reported incident in the area, alleged to be caused by a young male elephant in the region in the last few days.
The deceased was identified as Mumtaz alias Malumma, an area resident. She is said to have visited her brother’s home and was returning to her own house when she is believed to have crossed paths with the elephant, which attacked and killed her.
Local residents rushed out from their homes and chased away the elephant. They prevented the victim’s body from being taken to the Gudalur government hospital for postmortem. The residents demanded that the elephant be driven away from the area or captured.
Following talks with the forest and revenue departments, they finally relented and allowed the body to be taken for postmortem.
Forest officials stated that solutions to problematic human-elephant interactions in the area are being looked into. The O’Valley region, where the status of the land is yet to be decided due to it being declared as under Section 17 lands (where the rights of the leeses of the land is yet to be decided), is a prime elephant habitat, where elephant passages have shrunk over the last few decades due to the presence of one major tea estate and recent settlers, many of whom have encroached on heavily forested areas.
