38-year-old man trampled to death by elephant in Nilgiris

UDHAGAMANDALAM: A man was trampled to death by an elephant in Nelliyalam village in the Nilgiris on Wednesday night. A Vijayakumar, 38, was returning home around 10 pm after his night shift when he was attacked by the pachyderm.
Vijayakumar, an employee of a tea factory owned by TANTEA company in Nelliyalam, was crossing Ezhumanna when an elephant charged at him.Forest staff said the man could have been taken unawares as it was dark. The elephant charged at him and trampled him to death. The area falls under the Gudalur forest division in the Nilgiris. Villagers immediately alerted forest officials who went to the spot. The body of the victim was brought to Gudalur government hospital.
The postmortem examination was conducted on Thursday at the Gudalur GH and the body was later handed over to the family. "A compensation of Rs.3 lakh was given to the victim's family," said district forest officer (south) C Badrasamy, who is in charge of the Gudalur division.
In the past three months, at least five people have been killed by wild animals in the Nilgiris in increasing instances of man-animal conflict. While Mahalakshmi, 35, an estate worker was killed by a tiger near Bitherkadu in the Gudalur division in the Nilgiris on February 14, Amsa, 70, a resident of Pakna village near Gudalur was trampled to death by an elephant. H Mathi, 50, and her husband, Halan, 55, were killed by a sloth bear on March 24 in their village Thoddhamokkai near Kotagiri.