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Agence France-Presse

India’s top hunter on Friday led a shoot-to-kill pursuit of an elephant whose murderous rampage through villages has left 15 people dead.
The government has turned to sharpshooter Nawab Shafat Ali Khan ahead of World Elephant Day on Saturday to hunt the animal who crushed four victims in the eastern state of Bihar in March before crossing into neighbouring Jharkhand and killing 11 more.
Jharkhand’s chief forest and wildlife conservator L.R. Singh said the decision to kill the animal was made after a team failed to tranquillise and capture the elephant during a week-long mission.
Singh blamed the rocky terrain and thick vegetation in Sahibganj district. “The visibility is only 15 feet and it’s become next to impossible to tranquillise the animal,” Singh said.
“It has already killed so many people. There have been two deaths just in the last four days.
“Despite all the efforts by the forest department and our teams working 24-7, we had no option but to order the shooting of the animal,” he added.

The marauding elephant, believed to have lost its way after becoming separated from its herd, has strayed into villages in hillier parts of Sahibganj.
The area is inhabited by the Paharia tribe, one of the poorest indigenous tribal communities in India.
Of the 11 deaths in the state, nine of the victims were Paharias, Singh said.
Khan has been flown in from the southern city of Hyderabad to kill the prey.
“He is one of the best out there. He has vast experience in shooting such rogue animals and that’s why he has been given the responsibility to shoot the elephant,” he said.
“We expect him to get the animal anytime now – today, tonight, tomorrow – anytime.”
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In 2014, Khan was licensed by the northern state of Uttar Pradesh to capture or kill a man-eating tiger that was believed to have killed eight people.
Elephants kill roughly 60 people every year in forested Jharkhand, Singh said. An estimated 1,100 people died across India from elephant or tiger attacks in the three years to May.
The environment ministry estimates a human dies every day in India in clashes with endangered animals – the vast majority crushed by elephants.
Violent encounters between elephants and humans were an “increasing trend”, said Singh, as vast swathes of forest are cleared for human settlements and industry.


Shoot-to-kill: India hunts serial killer elephant that left 15 dead

An elephant in Chilapata forest, north Bengal. Photo: South China Morning Post

(FILES) This file photo taken on March 20, 2016 shows an elephant attacking an Indian man in a field in Baghasole village, in Burdwan district in West Bengal state. Endangered elephants and tigers are killing one person a day in India as humans put a growing squeeze on their habitat, according to new government figures released late July 2017. / AFP PHOTO / STR

Tigers and elephants kill one person a day in India amid squeeze on natural habitats

According to the environment ministry, 1,144 people were killed in attacks across India in 1,143 days between April 2014 and May this year

EDS NOTE; GRAPHIC CONTENT - A wild elephant gores a security guard to death in Mysore, in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, Wednesday, June 8, 2011. News reports said two wild elephants have gone on a rampage and government officials are trying to tranquilize the animals. Every year hundreds of people across India die when wild animals wander into cities as their natural habitats shrink and they have to range farther for food. (AP Photo)

** ADVANCE FOR MONDAY, SEPT. 15 ** Amir Naih, 32, shows the wounds inflicted by a tiger attack on July 24, 2008, as his sister Isharan Mollah, 27, looks on at a hospital in Basanti, on the outskirts of the Sundarbans, India, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2008. The Sundarbans forest, a remote tangle of unforgiving islands dangling off the eastern edge of India, is home to perhaps the world's largest population of tigers, as well as 4 million people who are among the poorest in India. The tigers here are prone to attacking humans, and despite decades of official and folk attempts to keep the man-eaters at bay, they still kill at least a dozen people every year. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh)

An elephant attacks an Indian man in a field in Baghasole village, in Burdwan district in West Bengal state. File photo: AFP

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