Assam govt accused of 'manipulating' 18 elephants' death report

By Devabrata Dutta

GUWAHATI: The Assam government is being accused of peddling untruths in its conclusive report on the unnatural deaths of 18 elephants.

The report has confirmed the deaths happened due to lightning strikes. However, everyone is not convinced.

The report submitted by the Assam government has concluded that the 18 jumbos have died due to electrocution and no poisoning had taken place as there was no presence of toxins in their collected samples.

But now many environmentalists and activists have questioned the government on not investigating the aspect of foul electrocution planned by humans.

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Environmentalist Mubina Akhtar, known for her role in demolishing a wall built by the NRL in mid of an elephant's corridor, while speaking to InsideNE said, "There is ample amount of evidence of how people connect electric wires into their paddy fields and how elephants would go there and die of electrocution. People could have just tried to get rid of these elephants as well."

Reportedly, a large plot of land was given for a solar power plant project to a private company, allegedly happened to be an elephant corridor.

"The area is a known natural habitat of elephants. There were multiple allegations by the locals against the ongoing project. The locals have suspected that the people from that project had to do something with this case. But part of the theory has not been investigated at all," added Akhtar.

The detailed government report stated, "As per situ spot evidence, the death of the elephants in the herd may not be attributed to any infectious pathological agent or any toxin or poison."

The report also suggested, "There does not appear to be any foul play such as the conscious attempt of electrocution, revenge killing, poisoning, Anthrax outbreak, etc.”

Mubina Akhtar alleged, "Though the government had taken the reference of Space Application Centre to establish that the lighting strikes incident had actually taken place, Space Application Centre had also asked for a soil resistivity report from the government to confirm the same. But I think there was no soil resistivity report."

"Yet the government still says that they have a detailed conclusive report on the matter. The forest minister has said that they had done a drone survey of the area. But why did not they order a proper police investigation like any other crime? By the time that drone survey was done the evidences might have been manipulated," Akhtar added further.

On May 13, as many as 18 wild elephants were found dead on Bamunipahar hill in Nagaon district.

Yesterday, Forest and Environment Minister Parimal Suklabaidya had released a detailed report on the matter and established that the death happened due to electrocution by lightning.

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