Tezpur, June 19: The Patanjali mega herbal food park at Ghoramari in Sonitpur district of Assam had an unpleasant reminder of good fences making good neighbours.

A herd of elephants broke the boundary wall and entered the food park, situated near the Assam Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) complex. Another herd trampled a person at Rangapara in the same district.

The herd that strayed from Sonai Rupai wildlife sanctuary has been regularly entering the Rangapara area. It killed two persons since Saturday.

Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal had laid the foundation stone of the Rs 1,300-crore food park in the presence of yoga guru Ramdev and other senior officials of Patanjali Ayurved on November 6 last year.

"The park is situated at a place frequented by elephants from nearby areas," a source in the forest department said.

The elephants also come to the area searching for food from the nearby forest, the sources added.

The assistant conservator of forests (West Sonitpur division), Jasim Ahmed, told The Telegraph that forest department officials visited the affected areas to the north of the Patanjali park. He said the area was a regular grazing area for the elephants.

He said forest officials had advised the park authorities to put up a solar-powered fence alongside the boundary wall and use iron posts.

Ahmed said the eastern and southern parts were almost open for the elephants to wander in. He had advised a solar-powered fence and deployment of security personnel to guard the area round-the-clock.

A few days after the foundation-laying ceremony, three wild elephants fell into pits and two died on November 23 last year. After the incident, the forest department filed a case against the Patanjali authorities and hearings are on in court here, Ahmed said.

Uday Goswami, the coordinator of the park, said an initiative would be taken to convince the authorities to put up the solar fence and use steel posts along the boundary wall as soon as possible.

Dilip Nath, a member of Aranya Surakha Samittee and the rhino-horn verification committee, said the place was an elephant-grazing zone.

He claimed that the plot of land, which was handed over for the project by the district industrial development corporation, was still public property and not government land.

Wild elephants also killed Vimsen Munda, 50, at No 18 Namgaon division in Sesa tea estate under Rangapara police station and destroyed his residence. On Saturday, another woman, Arsolata Karmakar, 45, was killed at Dhendai tea estate.

The forest department has been struggling to prevent the straying of elephants from the adjoining Sonai-Rupai sanctuary, a large portion of which has been encroached upon.

A female wild elephant died after it fell into a drain near Methoni tea estate in Bokakhat subdivision of Golaghat district.

Kaziranga divisional forest officer Rohini Ballav Saikia said a post-mortem has been conducted and found one of the elephant's kidneys to be damaged.