Elephants electrocuted; villagers perform last rites in Bengal

Thakurdas Mahato and his family, the owner of the plot of land on which the tragedy occurred, performed the rituals amid chanting of hymns by priests. The shradh ceremony is usually held on the 13th day after the death of a person.

People from Satbanki village in West Bengal’s Jhargram district on Monday attended what they called was the “shradh” [last rites] ceremony of the three elephants which had died on July 10 after coming in contact with a high-tension wire on a farmland.

Thakurdas Mahato and his family, the owner of the plot of land on which the tragedy occurred, performed the rituals amid chanting of hymns by priests. The shradh ceremony is usually held on the 13th day after the death of a person.

“We have followed all the rituals of shradh and prayed that the souls of these animals rest in peace. We collected cash, rice and vegetables from the people of our village and adjacent villages too,” said Kamal Mahato, a local.

In the early hours of July 10, a herd of 20 elephants was passing through the Satbanki area under the jurisdiction of Binpur police station when the three elephants came in contact with the live wire, Jhargram divisional forest officer Basavraj had said.

The pachyderms were believed to have come from the Dalma hill range in the neighbouring Jharkhand.

The carcasses of the three elephants were spotted in the morning by the villagers who informed the forest department officials.

To minimise the incidents of animal coming into human habitations, the forest department said it had installed a sensor-based warning system in a national park in Jalpaiguri district. The sirens would go off if elephants come within 150-200 metres of fringes of the forest.

“It is a sin if elephants die in this way. We performed the shradh so that no curse befalls us,” said Biren Mahato, son of Thakurdas Mahato.

Balak Karmakar, one of the locals who came to attend the ceremony, said. “I am from the Karmakar community and make items from iron. Biswakarma is our god and he rides an elephant. Therefore, I have followed the rituals too,” said Karmakar.

The villagers also got invitation cards printed for the function which were distributed among their friends and relatives from neighbouring areas.

The villagers have urged the forest department to get three elephant statues installed in the village, every year on July 10, they would organise a programme in the memory of the three animals.

Over 2,000 people have died since 2014 up to March 31, 2019 as a result of human-elephant conflict, with West Bengal recording the maximum 403 deaths in past five years, minister of state (MoS) for environment Babul Supriyo had said in Lok Sabha last month.