Guwahati, March 25: One person was killed and another seriously injured by a wild elephant near Kaziranga National Park today, official sources said.

The victim has been identified as Tulsi Gogoi, while the injured, Buda Ganju, is undergoing treatment at the Golaghat civil hospital.

Ganju, a resident of Dagaon, said the elephant tore down a treehouse where Gogoi was sitting and trampled him to death after he fell from the tree.

The elephant then charged at the tree where Ganju was perched. He fell from the tree and was “flung to a distance by the elephant,” an official said. The forest officials rescued him from a paddy field.

The park authorities have paid Rs 5,000 ex gratia to Gogoi’s next of kin. The authorities are also bearing the cost of Ganju’s medical expenses.

This is the first time that elephants have attacked a tree house near the park. Forest officials have launched a search operation to track the pachyderm.

Earlier, on March 1, a herd of elephants had trampled to death a villager at Nawjan.

Bokakhat legislator Jiten Gogoi said it was a common practice for the villagers residing near the park to perch on trees at night to guard their fields. “The incident was unfortunate,” he added.

The MLA had recently launched an operation to chase away a herd of elephants from the area. The animals, which had apparently strayed from Kaziranga, had killed a woman and destroying paddy fields and human settlements.