Elephant kills woman, returns to trample on her corpse during funeral

Some 97 people have lost their lives in human-animal conflict incidents reported in the state since March 2021.

In a bizarre and shocking incident reported from the Indian state of Odisha, an elephant killed a 70-year-old woman and reportedly came back later to trample on her corpse while her last rites were being performed by her family members.

The incident took place last week on Thursday in Raipal village of Mayurbhanj district. The elderly woman, Maya Murmu, was out collecting water from a tube well when she was attacked.

The elephant, who had strayed from the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary, attacked Murmu out of nowhere. The woman was immediately rushed to a hospital but could not be saved, according to local police officers.

According to a report in NDTV, the family had gathered to perform her last rites when the elephant appeared again. It lifted the woman's body from the funeral pyre and trampled all over it. The family completed her last rites only after the animal left the scene. It is not yet clear if it managed to harm others as well.

This is not the first time that the mineral-rich Odisha has been a witness to a human-animal conflict incident, such incidents are a common occurrence in the state.

"Due to uncontrolled mining activity, the stressed elephants are angry and enter villages in search of food, killing locals in the process. Every mining proposal in dense forests that are elephant habitat and feeding grounds has been cleared by the department," said Biswajit Mohanty, the secretary of Wildlife Society of Odisha, an NGO.

The experts believe that these incidents could be prevented if tuskers were identified and continuously tracked since in most cases, tuskers are the ones who have attacked humans.

The hungry tuskers tend to vent out their anger on older people as they cannot run fast enough to save their lives. The forest department also suggests that people should avoid collecting fruits from reserve forests and sanctuaries so the elephants have something to eat.

The Wildlife Society of Odisha had predicted earlier this year that the cases of human-elephant conflict (HEC) are only expected to rise this year. Some 97 people have already been killed between March 2021 and January, 2022.