Visakhapatnam: Wild elephants trampled a 74 year old farmer to death in Peda Bondapalli village in Parvathipuram Manyam district on Thursday morning. The deceased was identified as Devabattula Yacoob. Despite the efforts by elephant trackers to rescue him, he succumbed to his injuries while being transported to the nearest government hospital.
The elephants so far have killed 12 persons in man-elephant conflict in Parvathipuram Manyam region in the past one decade.
The fresh incident has instilled fear in Peda Bondapalli and surrounding villages. The locals said a herd of seven female elephants, including a calf, has been roaming Peda Bondapalli for the past few days. The lone make elephant has moved to Odisha recently. According to villagers, the herd destroyed the standing crops, prompting forest officials to issue alerts via megaphone in Peda Bondapalli and surrounding areas.
The locals said Yacoob had gone to his paddy field to remove weeds when an elephant in order to protect its new born calf attacked him. It may be recalled that, a 62-year-old Vana Sivudi Naidu was trampled to death by an elephant at Vannam village of Komarada mandal in Manyam district in August this year.
The elephants killed 12 persons and destroyed the property and crops worth more than Rs 6 crore in Manyam district in the past one decade. However, the officials utterly failed to shift the tuskers to forest areas and to save the lives and property from the jumbos, said the villagers.
It was decided to get four Kumki elephants-two for Chittoor district and two for north coastal Andhra Pradesh.
``The decision has been put on hold as we do not have sufficient infrastructure to have Kumki elephants and supporting Mahouts,’’ said an officer.
