DUMKA: Separated from its herd, a wild elephant continues to wreak havoc across several districts of Santhal Pargana.
In the past one week, the elephant has trampled five people to death in Deoghar and Jamtara districts.
According to forest officials here, the jumbo has so far killed 14 people across Santhal Pargana, Dhanbad and Giridih districts.
In the past 24 hours alone, three people have lost their lives.
Chaitali Devi (31) and her neighbour Vandana Kumari (16), residents of Dahua village under Pathrol police station of Deoghar district were trampled to death by the jumbo on Tuesday when they had gone to bathe in a nearby river.
“Both Chaitali and Vandana had gone to take a bath in river Jayanti in the afternoon but did not return.
Anticipating something is wrong, I along with a few others started looking for them.
We spotted the jumbo hiding alongside the Dahua forest with the dead bodies of both lying at some distance,” recalled Chaitali’s husband Rakesh Kumar Bhudeo.
The corpses were retrieved after foresters drove the elephant away, Bhudeo claimed.
According to the district forest officials, the jumbo was later driven away towards Jamtara district where it again killed one Shankar Singh (50) in Kalajhariya village under Karmatand police station area the same evening.
A married couple were killed by the same elephant in Maldiha village under Fatehpur police station of Jamtara on June 20 before been driven away by the forest department team to Deoghar district.
“The jumbo is being attempted to be driven away to the Tundi forest area in Dhanbad and people have been asked not to indulge in any such activities so as to tease it which might prove dangerous to their lives,” the district forest officer of Jamtara Achintya Banker said.