Officials struggle to find out why tusker was shot dead

DEHRADUN: Three days after the body of a 20-year-old tusker was found in Haridwar division, officials of the state forest department are still struggling to figure out why was the elephant shot.

The post-mortem report revealed that the animal was shot Thursday in the front left foot using a local gun and had died around 4am the next day.

Chief wildlife warden Monish Mullick termed the incident “alarming” and said that the investigation was being carried out to ascertain why the elephant was shot, saying that the animal’s presence was “not recorded in the village”, which rules out the cause that it may have been targeted for entering the human settlement. “Through the post-mortem, the bullet head was traced in the ventricle area of heart inside the elephant’s body. The bullet punctured the lungs and hit the heart,” said Akash Verma, divisional forest officer, Haridwar.

The DFO, who is in charge of the investigation in the case, said that during the combing operation on Friday, within a 500 metre radius of the spot where the elephant’s carcass was found in Hazara Grant village in Khanpur range, forest officials had also located blood stains.

“Evidence indicates that the animal had not visited the village that night, so there is no chance of it getting shot in the village. Though we are not denying the involvement of villagers.”

Meanwhile, forest officials have been left red-faced as the elephant was shot on the night of Diwali, when an alert had been issued by the department.