Two die in man-elephant conflict, angry mob vandalize forest beat office

From a Correspondent

Goalpara, Dec 28: At least two people lost their lives in the last 24 hours in man-elephant conflict in Goalpara district from Wednesday night to Thursday morning. As a part of the agitation to the deaths, people vandalized a local forest beat office, physically abused the officer and assaulted a jourlist who was filming the mob. According to the information, a herd of wild elephant had entered Keutpara of Agia on Wednesday night. The villagers tried to chase away the heard. However, one elephant retaliated and killed Winston Marak on the spot. In the second incident on Thursday morning around at 9:30 am, an elephant attacked and killed Arun Jyoti th alias Mithu, a popular youth at Bapupara part 2 of Agia, some 13 km from here. Following the death of Mithu, hundreds of people came out to the street and vehemently protested against the forest department for its failure to control the wild elephants. A section of youths after the protest, arrived at Agia forest beat office and began vandalizing the office. They also physically assaulted beat officer Suresh Das. The irate youths then attacked two electronic media jourlists busy in filming the incident. Though Sarat Das maged to escape from the scene, the group targeted jourlist Abdus Subhan who received several injuries. His spectacle was also broken, mobile phone and press card stched away. Both beat officer Suresh Das and jourlist Subhan were attended by doctors but not admitted in the hospital. Cross-section of people and the jourlist fraternity have condemned the attack.