Guwahati, Jan. 11: A beat officer of Kaziranga National Park was critically injured and a bleeding guard spent the entire night tied to a tree after villagers incensed by a woman’s death in an elephant attack chose to vent their anger on forest staff.

Beat officer Debanga Bhusan Das and his men were least expecting the usually friendly residents of Neejgarpal, located on the fringes of the national park, to react so violently when they went to the village to help chase away an elephant herd that had strayed into the area.

The herd had killed a woman by then and the villagers were seething. Some of them attacked the forest personnel the moment they entered Neejgarpal and the rest joined in. Das copped several blows, but escaped along with all but one of his men.

The forest guard who could not flee, Dulal Bora, was tied to a tree and he bled and shivered through the wintry night. It was only this morning that a team from Sootea police station rescued him. “He almost collapsed when they found him. He is in bad shape,” a forest department official said.

The villagers also snatched the walkie-talkies and weapons that the forest personnel were carrying.

Das walked over 9km with head injuries to reach the national park. Colleagues rushed him to a hospital in Bokakhat town, 23km away.

Until last night, residents of Neejgarpal had a healthy relationship with forest personnel manning Kaziranga, often providing them information about the movements of poacher gangs that prey on the one-horned rhino. “The village comes under Sonitpur East forest division, which is beyond the sixth patch of forest added to the park. But since the villagers were helping us combat poachers, we thought it was our duty to help them chase away the elephant herd,” a park official said.

The immediate source of concern for forest staff is the villagers’ threat to kill any animal that enters their area. “This is a serious issue. Animals from Kaziranga, be it rhino or deer, often stray into human habitation in the vicinity of the park,” the official said.

The Tata Tea-owned Hathikuli tea estate, which is contiguous to one section of the park, recently committed itself to turning fully organic to prevent pesticide poisoning of wild animals that enter the plantation. The Rongagora division of Hathikuli tea estate is part of a “critical wildlife area” between Kaziranga in the north and Karbi Anglong in the south.

The forest department was planning to acquire Rongagora to save wildlife from being exposed to killer pesticides and poison attacks by humans. The estate came under the scanner after a royal Bengal tiger cub died there and another was found in a semi-conscious state.

Kaziranga straddles two districts, Golaghat and Nagaon, and is 217km from Guwahati. Although its most famous resident is the one-horned rhino, it is home to several other endangered animal and avian species.