Burning tyre hurled on wild elephant in Tamil Nadu, 2 arrested

Udhagamandalam: A burning tyre was hurled on a wild elephant after it strayed into a human habitat in Masinagudi in Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu.

Two people, Prasanth and Raymond, have been arrested in connection with the incident and hunt is on for a third accused Ricky.

The elephant which suffered burn injuries in November 2020, died on January 19, 2021. It was when visuals of the elephant on fire came out that forest officials got to know how the elephant was injured.

Releasing a video of the incident on Friday, the officials said the elephant with serious injuries on one of the ears died without responding to treatment a couple of days ago, sources in the forest department said.

The video showed the object in flames hurled from a building on the animal injuring its ear. The elephant fled trumpeting in pain, they said.

Later, it was found lying near a dam. The forest department veterinarians tried to revive it, but in vain.

A postmortem was done.

A provisional diagnosis suggested that the septic fistula filled with pus and severe loss of blood leading to acute anaemia, hypovolemia resulted in shock and death of the 50-year-old tusker, though the burns on the ear have not been the cause of death, they said.