A farmer in Ganjam district has been arrested for shooting dead a young tusker after the animal refused to leave his farmland despite repeated attempts to scare it away.
The incident occurred on October 31 but came to light only after forest officials recovered the carcass from Baiballi reserve forest area and launched an investigation.
Divisional forest officer (DFO) of Ghumsur North Division, Himanshu Sekhar Mohanty, said the accused, identified as Umakanta Pradhan, 45, alias Landa, was arrested and produced in court on Monday. “During interrogation, Pradhan said he fired at two elephants that had entered his field. One fled after he used firecrackers, but the other refused to leave, forcing him to shoot it with his country-made gun. The tusker ran about 50 metres before collapsing,” Mohanty said.
The DFO clarified that the killing was not linked to poaching. “Had he killed for tusks, he would have tried to remove them. He acted out of fear and to protect his crops,” he added. Two country-made guns, pellets and gunpowder were seized from his possession. Officials said Pradhan had earlier killed wild boars.
The incident occurred amid growing tension between farmers and elephants in the district following Cyclone Montha, which caused heavy rain and damaged standing paddy crops. The loss has driven elephants out of the forest in search of food, worsening the human-animal conflict.
Forest officials said compensation of ₹22,000 per acre is offered for crop loss due to elephant raids. But farmers call the amount inadequate. “From one acre, we get around 25 quintals of rice worth ₹60,000–₹75,000. The compensation barely covers a third of that,” said Samir Mallick, a farmer.
Mallick added that villagers now keep night vigils, using torches, firecrackers and burning tyres to chase elephants away. “We face danger every night. The fog makes visibility poor and elephants appear suddenly,” he said.
In a related incident, a five-year-old boy, Rabi Majhi, was trampled to death by an elephant near a paddy field in Kalahandi on Monday. In Mayurbhanj, a herd of 19 elephants from Jharkhand destroyed paddy and killed a farmer, Ashok Tudu, while he was returning home.
Odisha continues to record the highest number of human deaths due to elephant attacks in India, followed by Jharkhand and Bengal.