Two wild elephants were found dead in Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri districts on Thursday.

In Alipurduar, an adult tusker was found dead in the Volka forest range of the Buxa Tiger Reserve (east) division in the morning. Forest department officers said the animal was electrocuted after coming into contact with an illegally energised fence erected to protect agricultural fields.

Local people spotted the carcass. A team led by Kumar Vimal, the field director of the BTR, reached the spot.

The foresters recovered a long power cable connected to the main power supply line of a nearby farmland purportedly owned by Mithun Rava, who also had his field enclosed with high-voltage wire.

After preliminary investigation, Mithun and Palash Rava, another resident, were detained for questioning.

Despite repeated awareness campaigns conducted jointly by the forest and the power departments, the illegal practice of using electric cables to protect crops from elephants continues in different parts of north Bengal.

According to the data available with the forest department, 22 elephants were electrocuted in the region in the past 10 years.

In Jalpaiguri district, an elephant was found dead on the Teesta riverbed near Baniapara in Patkata panchayat, close to the Teesta embankment of Jalpaiguri town. Forest department officers said they were waiting for the postmortem report to know the cause of the sub-adult’s death.

Local people said a herd of elephants had been roaming the Teesta riverbed for the past few days.

“I saw an elephant lying on the ground from a distance. At first, I thought it was resting. But when it did not move for a long time, I went closer and found that it had died,” said Tahijul Alam, who first spotted the carcass while he was on his way to his farmland.

Teams from Belakoba forest range and the wildlife squad at Bodaganj in the Baikunthapur forest division and the Jalpaiguri forest division reached the spot and recovered the carcass.

Manoj Oraon, the state forest minister, said the department was conducting probes to know the causes of the two elephants’ deaths.