Farmer trampled to death by elephant in Shahdol, MP’s fourth jumbo attack fatality this year

Bhopal: A 50-year-old farmer was trampled to death by a wild elephant in Madhya Pradesh’s Shahdol district late Wednesday night. It marks the fourth elephant-related fatality in the state this year amid escalating human-elephant conflict in the Shahdol-Anuppur forest belt.The attack unfolded around midnight in the Keswahi forest range, just 20-25 km from Anuppur’s district headquarters — a place already scarred by three similar deaths so far this year. Chhote Lal Singh was resting with his family in his house near their crops when the elephant, suspected to be the same stray from a Chhattisgarh herd of five, crashed into the village. Panic erupted as relatives fled the unseen intruder; Singh did not make it out alive, crushed before help could arrive.Amlai police station in-charge Bhupendra Mani Pandey confirmed the grim details: “It was around midnight when the incident took place, and only one elephant was involved. We have registered a case of unnatural death and started the investigation.” Forest and police teams rushed to the scene, their lights cutting through the night as villagers whispered of the beast’s solitary wanderings since January, when it allegedly claimed three lives in Anuppur alone.This was no isolated tragedy. Weeks earlier, a woman returning from her fields with her husband and son met the same fate in Anuppur’s woods. The elephants — first spotted late last year — drift restlessly between districts, their migrations from Chhattisgarh igniting fear in forest-fringe hamlets. Officials had blared warnings via public announcements after repeated sightings near the boundary, yet the conflicts persist.Now, tracking teams and local volunteers fan out to monitor the animals, while compensation processes begin for Singh’s kin. Across Madhya Pradesh, the toll mounts relentlessly: wild animal attacks kill a person every five days on average, with 71 deaths in 2024-25, up from 76 the year before and 86 in 2022-23 — a stark toll borne by those who live on the ragged edge where wilderness meets survival.