MP: Two held for death of elephant due to electrocution

Two persons were arrested in connection with the death of a wild elephant due to electrocution near a village in Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur district, a forest official said on Saturday. The carcass of one of the two tuskers moving about in the area was found near Mohas village, 15 km from the district headquarters on Friday.

The elephant had walked into an electric trap set by the poachers for killing wild boars, Jabalpur divisional forest officer Anhana Tirkey said. Efforts are on to trace the other wild pachyderm, the official said. On interrogation, the accused said when they saw the elephant dead in the trap, they cut off the power connection from the overhead high-tension electricity supply lines, the official said.

The accused, who are residents of a nearby village, were booked under the Wildlife Protection Act and further probe is underway, Tirkey said. The deceased elephant had sustained a burn injury on its trunk and his vital organs were also severely impacted, said DSandeep Agrawal, wildlife veterinary officer of Kanha National Park.

The two tuskers had entered the district from Mandla towards the south and had been moving about in the area, though there were no reports of the them having harmed anybody or damaged property in Mangeli, Mohgas or Jamtara villages, the DFO had stated. The pachyderms had entered the state from Balaghat, a district on the Chhattisgarh border, and had been spotted in Satpura Tiger Reserve in Hoshangabad and Mandla's Kanha Tiger Reserve (Mandla), as well as Seoni bordering Maharashtra, she said.