The body of the elephant lies on the tracks. Picture by Anirban Choudhury

Alipurduar, May 28: Twenty-four hours after a tusker was killed by the speeding Guwahati-bound Jhajha Express, wildlife NGOs are hoping that the new railway minister will be more proactive about saving animals from track deaths.

Animesh Bose, the programme Coordinator of Himalayan Nature and Adventure Foundation, said: “We are sending a letter to Mamata Banerjee, the new railway minister. So far neither forest nor railway staff seemed to have given much effort in preventing accidents of this sort. We had blocked railway tracks in protest earlier, but nothing much came out of it. Trains, which do not have halts in the Dooars, are always travelling at great speeds and kill wild animals on a regular basis.”

Last night, the tusker named Rocket by villagers was killed in the Titi-IV compartment of the Jaldapara Wildlife’s sanctuary’s north range. A forest staff member recounted that Rocket had the habit of running towards any light that was focussed on it. Around 9pm, when the UP5641 Jhajha Express was speeding through the sanctuary, the tusker came on its way.

Driver Gopal Kujur said he could not stop the train all of a sudden and the elephant was dragged for at least 200 metres.

The express, however, came back to Madarihat station, a kilometre from the spot of the collision. Train service between Alipurduar Junction and Siliguri Junction had resumed at 3am after the track was cleared off the carcass.

With the help of a crane the elephant’s body was loaded on a truck and was taken to Titi forest where a post-mortem was conducted. According to a forest source, the tusker was at least 30 years old. At least 14 elephants have died in train collisions in this section of Jaldapara in the past four years.

S.B. Patel, the chief conservator of forest (wild, north), said: “In June 2008, the ministry of environment and forest had recommended to the railway board a few measures that were expected to bring down animal deaths on tracks. But none of the steps had been implemented.”

Among the suggestions of the environment ministry were construction of guard walls along the tracks on a stretch of 1.5km and two slopes 500m apart in Chapramari for elephants to flee. The tracks in Chapramari had been cut out of mountainsides and the stretch is very narrow. “If a herd enters, it will find it difficult to flee even if it hears the train coming. The slopes would help them escape,” said Patel

For Jaldapara, the committee had suggested two underpasses for animals so that they did not cross the tracks that run almost 35ft above the ground level. The most important recommendation was reduced speed for trains passing through forests, said Patel.