Bhubaneswar, Nov 9 (Odisha.in) A tusker on Friday accidentally killed its mahout after getting into a foul mood at the elephant-training centre at Chandaka Wildlife Sanctuary.
The incident occurred at about 3.30 pm when the mahout, Dilip Rabha, was taking Shankar, the 20-year-old elephant for a bath.Suddenly, Shankar got into an erratic mood, threw Rabha off its back and then crushed him to death, divisional forest officer Siba Narayan Mohapatra told Odisha.in.
Shankar has a history of a biological imbalance in which it gets into sudden erratic mood following a massive increase in male hormone. Rabha, from Assam, is the third mahout to be killed by Shankar.
The “rogue” tusker had killed two other mahouts in the forests of Angul and Keonjhar, before being brought to the training centre in 2010 to be trained to drive away wild elephants from human habitation and protect people.
The forest department has selected six best elephants, including Shankar, to train them and brought several mahouts from Assam for the purpose. Some of the “rogues” like Shankar had been “reformed” during training in the centre. Presently, the centre has four elephants, three males and one female who are undergoing such training.
Odisha.in