Erode: A farmer was killed in an attack by a herd of elephants in the Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve (STR) here in the early hours of Sunday.A forest officer identified the deceased as K Mahesh, 30, of Karalavadi village, which falls in Jeeragalli reserve forest. He said the incident occurred when Mahesh was guarding his agricultural land at night. “An elephant herd entered the land and started damaging the standing crops. He was attacked by a group of elephants and died on the spot,” the officer said. Other farmers, who were also guarding their crops in nearby fields, tried to chase away the elephant herd by bursting firecrackers, but with little success. When alerted, forest field staff chased the elephant herd away into the forest and took the farmer’s body to the govt hospital at Sathyamangalam for a postmortem. Pointing to the growing man-elephant conflict in the area, local residents urged the forest department to find a permanent solution to the issue. Farmers said elephants were often coming out of the forest and raiding crops. They said the family of Mahesh should be given a compensation of Rs25 lakh.
