A wild elephant trampled a 69-year-old man in a village under Chowka thana area in the adjoining Seraikela-Kharsawan district about 40 km away early this morning. The incident took place at Khunti village in Chowka at around 5 am while the victim, identified as Lilkant Mahto, was about to go out to meet the call of nature.
It was a lone servant who attacked an elderly man and stomped him to death, wandered into a cornfield and went on a rampage there. As the elephant was behaving aggressively, the villagers got scared and went to a safe place. They returned to their village after Tusker disappeared into the nearby jungle.
After hearing the stomping in Khunti village, a team of forest department officials reached the village and paid Rs 50,000 as compensation to the victim's family members.
A forest official said the Rs 50,000 they paid to the victim's family was part of the Rs four crore compensation package. The remaining Rs 3.5 million will be paid after the paperwork is completed.
A police team also reached the spot and took the body to Seraikela Sadar Hospital for autopsy. Sources in the forest department said that department functionaries including forest rangers and range guards were monitoring the migrating herds of elephants.
"But whenever an elephant is separated from the herd, it starts behaving aggressively and tends to enter the human environment," the official noted while talking to the media.