Elephant tramples farm labourer to death in Bannerghatta National Park
Bengaluru: A farm labourer, who was walking inside the Bannerghatta National Park (BNP), was trampled to death by a wild elephant. The victim, Venkatesh (46), was working in a farm located near Kanive-Shivapura village.
The road to these two hamlets leads through the BNP forest, which has a sizeable population of wild elephants. During the night, tuskers are found grazing on the roadside inside the park.
Park Director Sunil Panwar announced a Rs 5 lakh compensation to the family of Venkatesh, who hailed from Kolar district. Venkatesh was rushed to St John’s Hospital, but he died on the way. The body was handed over to the family members after the postmortem on Monday.
This is the second such incident inside the Bannerghatta forest in the last one month. Two weeks ago, a woman labourer was killed by an elephant, while she was part of a team that was repairing the road inside the forest.
“People who work inside and stay around the forest are aware of the movement of elephants. But in both these cases, the victims were not from the area, and were not aware of the elephant movement. We are trying to educate the contractors who take up works inside the forest, to avoid such incidents in the future,” he said.
Over the last two months, BNP officials have raised barricades at the forest entry gates to stop people from taking illegal joy rides inside the park during night. “We have posted guards at Shivanahalli Gate and also put up barricades in the night to keep stop illegal activities and unauthorised entry into the forest,” said an official from BNP.
Zoo celebrates arrival of baby hippo
Bannerghatta Biological Park (BBP) officials celebrated the birth of a baby hippo to mother Cauvery on Monday. The mother hippo was separated from other hippos and was put in isolation two weeks ago to allow her to give birth.
The park officials are, however, keeping their fingers crossed as Cauvery has lost six of her litters in the past soon after their birth. With the newborn hippo, the number of these mammals at the zoo has reached a double figure, ten.
