Tension gripped several forest fringe villages in Gudupalle and Kuppam mandals of the distrirct after a cattle-rearer was trampled to death by a lone elephant in the fields abutting Srinivasapuram village on the Kuppam-Tamil Nadu border. Three others were injured in the attack. The incident that took place on Saturday night, came to light on Sunday.
According to information, a batch of four villagers of Ekulamnattam village in neighbouring Tamil Nadu was on their way to Srinivasapuram of Gudupalle mandal, passing through the reserve forest. They rear cattle in the forest and take up petty jobs in villages. A lone elephant had been following them through the forest. All of a sudden, the animal trampled one of them, Govindappa (45), to death. It caught hold of another person, Nagaraju, by its trunk and flung him to a distance. Nagaraju suffered a leg fracture. Later, the tusker moved towards the remaining two, who ran for their lives.
While one person could cross into the village, the other had lost all hope and knelt before the chasing elephant. Lifting his folded hands, he cried and “prayed” the elephant to spare him. “Incredibly, the elephant left me alone,” he told the villagers later.
The duo who received small bruises while running away, later rescued their companion, with a broken leg, and retrieved the body of the deceased with the help of the villagers.
The forest officials who rushed to the spot around midnight had deployed elephant trackers and told the villagers to be cautious and move in groups, besides avoiding wearing white clothes. Incidentally, the injured and the deceased were in white shirts when the jumbo attack took place.
Some youth at Gudupalle said that a herd of three elephants and a lone tusker were moving in half a dozen villages in the forest fringe areas along the border with Tamil Nadu.
