Jumbo Death: Balrampur Farmer Arrested For Installing Electric Fence

The farmer, Rambaksh, said he deliberately installed the wire to harm the elephant. A case has been registered under the Wildlife Act of 1972.

Balrampur: The owner of the field, Rambaksh, a resident of Murka, has been arrested for purportedly fencing with high-voltage wire to scare away animals. The carcass of a wild tusker was found in a paddy field on the edge of forest P3492 under Murka village of Manikpur circle in Balrampur of Balrampur-Ramanujganj district of Chhattisgarh.

After investigation, the forest department concluded that the jumbo, after getting separated from a herd, came in contact with a live wire which led to electrocution.

Surguja CCF Matheshwaran B said it was revealed in the investigation that the farmer had installed high-voltage wires around his fields. The farmer said he had deliberately installed the wire to harm the elephant. Seeing the elephant near his field on Saturday, the farmer installed an electric wire at 4 pm on Sunday and the jumbo got electrocuted around 9 pm. Action is being taken as per the Wildlife Act, 1972 against him. Efforts will be made to mete out maximum punishment so that others refrain from doing such cruelty. The carcass of the elephant was buried following a postmortem.

Chief forest conservator Matheshwaran B said two herds of elephants were roaming in Wadrafnagar. There are six elephants in one group and five in the other. Two male tuskers are also roaming 25 kilometres away and a total of 35 elephants are roaming in Wadrafnagar.

He said Chhattisgarh, Balrampur, Korea, Surajpur, and Jashpur are the most affected. Chattisgarh had a good number of elephants till 1930 and there were no elephantine activities for about 87 years. It started depleting in the 1990s when the tuskers moved out to neighbouring states. However, deforestation due to the exploration of mines in Jharkhand brought them back to Chhattisgarh with a large swathe of forest providing suitable conditions. As a good sign, the number of elephants is also increasing.