Two men on a motorcycle died on Saturday night after the two-wheeler struck an elephant crossing the road in the Tanda forest of Nainital district, officials said on Sunday.
Police said the victims, who were travelling from Haldwani to Rudrapur 30km away, possibly did not spot the elephant on the Rampur Road till it was too late. The victims have been identified by the police as vendors from a nearby settlement, Shakeel, 26, and Jafar, 28. The two were from Shahjahanpur district in Uttar Pradesh, and were currently living in Haldwani’s Gafur Basti.
“Late on Saturday night, we received information that a motorcycle had collided with an elephant near Tanda on Rampur Road. A police team rushed to the spot and shifted the injured to a government hospital,” Haldwani superintendent of police (SP) Manoj Katyal said
Doctors told the police that only one of the two was alive when they were brought to the local hospital, but succumbed to his injuries soon after.
Tarai Central Forest Division’s divisional forest officer Umesh Chandra Tiwari said one of the two victims had sustained a severe head injury. “Whether the injuries were caused during the accident or by the elephant will be clear only after the post-mortem report,” he said.
The stretch of Rampur Road where the accident occurred is a recognised “elephant corridor”, a vital route for the animals moving through the forest.
According to the All India Synchronised Elephant Estimation–2023 released in October 2025, Uttarakhand has 1,792 elephants. The state was estimated to be home to 1,346 elephants in 2007 and 1,558 elephants in 2012.
