Jorhat, June 30: Less than a week after two persons were killed by a herd of wild elephants at Letekujan tea estate in Golaghat district, another person has fallen to the herd.

Fifty-five-year-old Khogeswar Saikia was trampled to death at Phulbari village under Numaligarh police outpost on Wednesday night.

Saikia came out of his house at around 2 am after hearing the elephants moving in his backyard. The jumbos were feeding on plantain trees in his garden. He confronted the herd and was killed instantly.

Four persons have already been killed by elephants in the area this month. Several elephants were also injured when villagers retaliated.

Last Friday, the wild herd killed two persons and injured three others of the same family at the labour lines of Letekujan tea estate.

Golaghat honorary wildlife warden Arup B. Goswami said the condition of one of the elephants, which was probably attacked by local villagers, is critical. ?The elephant was sighted inside Numaligarh tea estate yesterday. It was limping,? he added.

The jumbos had been enraged by the constant sounds of explosions at a stone quarry near an elephant corridor. The quarry has been allotted an area that was declared part of an elephant reserve in 2003.

It is not only elephants that are being disturbed in their habitat. Other wild animals, too, who had made the foothills of the Karbi Anglong hills their home, are reacting to the disturbances.

On Tuesday, a black panther, listed in Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, was killed at Rangajan tea estate, about 10 km from the site of the stone quarry.

The panther suddenly attacked labourers who were plucking tea leaves, at around noon.

The panther injured eight persons, two of them seriously, before it was killed by the labourers.