Jumbo problem: Living with the elephants
December 18, 2020, 2:33 PM IST
This December is turning out to be a nightmare for villagers living along the forest fringes inoimbatore and Nilgiris. On December 12, 75-year-old P Arumugam of Vanjiamman Nagar near Thondamuthur in rural Coimbatore stepped out of his house around 6.30am and was knocked down by a tusker. The same elephant went on to chase two youths from the village who managed to escape. Within a week, a 65-year-old woman was trampled to death on Pannimadai-Varapalayam Road in the district. During the same period, Nilgiris district saw four deaths including that of a father-son duo in elephant attacks. Even as the forest officials intensified patrolling in the villages adjoining forests areas of Coimbatore and sent a team to tranquilise and capture the tusker that killed two in Gudalur, reports came in that two forest personnel involved in wildlife census in Sathayamangalam-Nilgiris border were killed in an elephant attack.