Women trampled to death by elephant in Chittoor

Naveen S Garewal

Tribune News Service

Hyderabad, September 28

A 60-year-old woman was trampled to death by an elephant in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district on Sunday. Sources said the incident happened with the woman, a farmer’s wife, was out to answer nature’s call.

It is suspected that the tusker got nervous on seeing the woman as it may have been separated from the herd and attacked the woman in panic.

This is the third incident of this nature during the past week, forest officials said. The woman identified as S Papamma of village Rallapalli in Santhipuram Mandal was located by forest officials and before they could take her to the hospital, she died.

It is reported that the same elephant attacked and injured another farmer while he was working on his farm. This farmer has been identified as Narayanappa of Chintalapalem village in the Gudupalli Mandal.

Forest officials said a 17-year-old girl, Sonia, was attacked and killed on September 24 by an elephant close to Parthichenu village, barely 100 metre from the Krishnagiri forest reserve.

Divisional forest officer Chittoor (west), S Ravishankar has told mediapersons that villagers in Andhra Pradesh bordering Tamil Nadu had been put on alert about possible attacks by elephants, which come for the farmers’ crops and end up attacking them.