Tezpur, Jan. 2: Wild elephants trampled a person to death and damaged several houses near Arangajuli tea estate on the Indo-Bhutan border in Udalguri district last night.

Jindal Bakra, 55, was attacked by the herd near his house at number 1 Segunbari around 11pm when he tried to chase some of the elephants. The elephants damaged at least five houses last night.

Segunbari (number one) falls under Nunaipara range office.

Official sources said a herd of more than 100 jumbos, coming from the Bhutan side, entered Arangajuli tea garden last night. Wild elephants have been destroying several houses and terrorising people living in the tea gardens for the past couple of days.

Arangajuli tea garden is about 45km from Udalguri in the Nunaipara forest range under Khalingduar reserve forest.

Dhiren Adhikari, divisional forest officer, Udalguri, told The Telegraph over phone that Khalingduar reserve forest, near the Bhutan border, is an elephant corridor through which wild elephants make their way to the garden.

The forest department has taken measures to push back the elephants but to no avail as the herds keep coming back in search of food.

Last year, elephants killed 23 people in Udalguri alone while several houses were destroyed. The elephants also damaged most of the crops in Nunaipara range.

Meanwhile, the shortage of forest guards in Udalguri has put the department in a spot regarding the protection of wild elephants.

Udalguri is about 100km from here.

Elephant depredation is a regular phenomenon in neighbouring Sonitpur district as well, particularly in the area under two forest divisions of Sonitpur district - Sonitpur east and west.

Bearing the brunt of attacks are people in Tarajuli, Rangapara, Chariduar, Gohpur and Behali in the district, all located near tea gardens.

Divisional forest officer, Sonitpur east, Narayan Mahanta, said the department has used five kunki elephants (domesticated and trained elephants that are used to ward off attacks by wild elephants) to protect the people living near tea gardens in east Sonitpur.

A source said encroachment in forest areas have to be stopped to save elephant habitats and that could be done only if there was no political interference.

Ananta Bag, chairman-cum-CEO of Green Valley Forest and Wildlife Protection Society, an NGO, said, acute shortage of food, coupled with habitat destruction and floods have fuelled the man-elephant conflict, with herds prompted to enter human habitation, mainly in search of food.