Human-elephant conflicts claim 17 people in just two areas in Assam

Staff Reporter

Guwahati: Human-elephant conflicts have escalated to the point where, in just two areas of Assam, as many as 17 people lost their lives to elephant attacks in 2025. The two areas are the regions under Tamulpur Legislative Assembly Constituency (LAC) and Morongi Revenue Circle in Golaghat district.

The statistics came to light after the recent deaths of 8 wild elephants after the Sairang-Delhi Rajdhani Express hit them while crossing the tracks in the Nagaon district in the wee hours of December 21.

The sad incident led to the calculation of human deaths in human-elephant conflict.

Of the 17 people who died from elephant attacks this year, 11 of the deaths occurred in Tamulpur, and the remaining 6 died in Morongi. The 11 human casualties in Tamulpur comprised 8 males and 3 females.

Significantly, a total of 25 humans perished from the human-elephant conflict between 2021 and 2025. The year-wise fatalities are as follows: 9 in 2021, 4 in 2022, 2 in 2023, 4 in 2024, and 6 in 2025.

Moreover, the state as a whole witnessed the deaths of 383 humans in the period from 2019-20 to 2023-24. This is the fourth-highest number of human casualties from human-elephant conflict (HEC) in the country.

The Forest Department has taken up several measures to mitigate the problem, but these are not enough, and HEC continues to persist. Moreover, wild elephants are coming close to human settlements in new areas every year, leading to more conflicts.

The Forest Department gives a compensation of Rs 4 lakh each to the next of kin of HEC victims. But this is not the solution. Both short-term and long-term scientific solutions need to be worked out to mitigate the crisis.

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