Mystery shrouds death of a three months old wild baby elephant in Assam,India

Another shocking example of the death of a baby wild elephant in Udalguri district in Assam in India has come to light to much disappointment of people. Instead of finding the causes of death, the dead body was dumped hurriedly without performing the postmortem. The incident has raised several questions regarding the safe movement of the wild elephants in the district in view of the so called man elephant conflict.

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According to information received the dead body of a three months old baby wild elephant was found in Satgharia village (Jorapuphuri basti), about 3 km north of Hatigarh TE on September But the dead body of the baby elephant was dumped hurriedly without performing postmortem. According to the nature lovers, it was very much important to find out the causes of the death rather to dump it. They suspected that the baby elephant was either poisoned to death or electrocuted. D.N.Hazarika, Circle Officer, Harisinga Revenue Circle said that the matter had already been reported to the DC, Udalguri.

When contacted H.Kalita, Range Officer, Nonoi Range Office at first told this correspondent on September 5 (at 5 pm) that postmortem had been done in presence of Dr. R.K Chamua, VAS,Tangla. Surprisingly Dr.Chamua refused attending any such postmortem of the baby elephant. But he alleged that one VFA only ( Prafulla Saharia ) had been taken to the spot for postmortem, which he said was against the rule. Bankim Sarma Divisional Forest Officer, Dhansri forest Division, Udalguri confirmed the death of the baby elephant at 6 pm on September 5 and said that he was wrongly informed on the incident. According to him VFA s were not authorized to perform postmortem.

In the meantime nature loving people and organizations have condemned the death of the baby elephant and demand formal postmortem so that appropriate action could be taken to stop such incidents.