A youth was killed and a five-year-old child was seriously injured after a wild elephant attacked two members of the same family in Assam’s Goalpara district on Monday night, in yet another incident highlighting the growing human-elephant conflict in the region.
The incident occurred at Naldoba in Nepalikhuti, under the Goalpara East Assembly constituency, when a lone wild elephant reportedly attacked the family members.
The youth sustained critical injuries in the attack and later succumbed to them. The five-year-old child was also seriously injured and was rushed to a hospital for treatment.
The incident comes just days after Amjad Ali, a jawan of the 17th Assam Police Battalion (APBN), was killed in a wild elephant attack in Goalpara district.
According to reports, a large herd of wild elephants has been moving through several areas under the jurisdiction of the Goalpara Regional Forest Division. The movement of the herd has reportedly caused disturbances and resulted in damage to agricultural fields.
Repeated elephant incursions have sparked concern among residents over the increasing frequency of human-elephant encounters in the district. Local communities are also raising questions about the effectiveness of existing measures to prevent such incidents.
The latest death has renewed calls for stronger monitoring of elephant movements, timely alerts for communities living in vulnerable areas and effective measures to reduce encounters between people and wild elephants.
With elephant movement continuing in several parts of the district, residents have urged the authorities to strengthen surveillance and take preventive steps to protect lives and property.
