Elephant tramples 4 people to death in Coimbatore

June 2, 2017

Coimbatore, Jun 2: Four people, including a 12-year-old girl and two women, were trampled to death by a tusker at Ganeshapuram and Vellalore in Coimbatore city in the early hours of Friday.tusker

The deceased have been identified as Gayathri, 12, daughter of Vijayakumar of Ganeshapuram, P Palanisamy, 73, of Kambar Street at Vellalore, B Nagarathinam, 50, and her friend M Jothimani, 68, of Vellalore.

The tusker came out of the forest on Wednesday night and attacked two anti-poaching watchers near BK Pudur. The tusker was sent back to the forest in the early hours of Thursday. Two special teams were deployed in Madukkarai forest on Thursday night to monitor the elephant.

However, the elephant -- aged between 20 and 25 -- came out of the forest and entered residential area at Ganeshapuram near Podanur in the early hours of Friday.

Gayathri, her father Vijayakumar, mother Thangamani and two of her siblings were sleeping in the front yard of their house. Around 3.15am, they heard the sound of an elephant and were taken by surprise as it entered the portico and attacked them.

The tusker first caught hold of Vijaykumar and threw him away. Later, it attacked Thangamani, who tried to safeguard her three children. By the time Vijaykumar recovered and tried to rescue his family, the elephant had attacked Gayathri and trampled her.

Thangamani could protect her two other children -- Rithika, 7, and Vetrimaran, 4 - from the elephant.

"We were completely shocked. We did not know what to do. We were sleeping. The elephant tried to enter the house and attacked us. We are devastated. My leg is hurt and my husband's arm is badly injured," said Thangamani who was inconsolable.

The relatives of the victims said that the area where they lived was extremely dangerous and lacked facilities. "We have no toilets or any other service in the area. We had to wait for over an hour to take Gayathri to hospital. She was alive till 4.30am. But lack of ambulance and transport facilities were the reasons for the loss of her life. We took her to the nearby private hospital in Sundarapuram where she was not treated at all. We had to wait. The doctors did not even give her first aid," alleged Thangamani.

Gayathri was later taken to another private hospital where she was declared brought dead.

Three more deaths

Meanwhile, the elephant travelled from Ganeshapuram for nearly 5km and reached Vellalore. Around 5am, it attacked Palanisamy, a farmer who had come to the field to relive himself.

Palanisamy, who He noticed some wild boars in the field, threw stones to drive them away, without noticing the elephant standing there. The elephant attacked Palanisamy. The elephant threw him away and trampled him to death.

The elephant later attacked Nagarathinam and Jothimani, who too had come out to attend nature's call. Relatives of Nagarathinam, Jothimani and Palanisamy said that these three lives could have been saved had the forest department alerted them.

G Kannan, a relative of Palanisamy, said, "The incident near Podanur took place around 3.15am. Had the forest department alerted people in villages in the 10 km radius, three lives could have been saved," he said.

Elephant tranquilised

Meanwhile, officials attempted to chase away the elephant to the forest. But it continued to roam in the residential area, and forest officials decided to tranquilise it.

More than 100 police personnel were deployed in the area. Kumkis were also brought.

Around noon, the animal was tranquilised.

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Agencies
January 6,2020

New Delhi, Jan 6: A blind student who is pursuing research in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) was also attacked by the mob that perpetrated violence in the University yesterday.

"I thought that the mob which came yesterday would disperse after raising a few slogans but they indulged in violence. They were targeting ABVP students. They beat me with sticks and rods. When I went to the AIIMS Trauma Centre, I came to know that there are many other injured students there," Surya Prakash, the blind student pursuing research in the University told ANI.

"I talked to my family members. They are really worried about the situation here. I qualified in the National Eligibility Test (NET) last year but I want to study and hence I am continuing research in JNU. How can we do anything in this atmosphere of fear? I am receiving calls from anonymous numbers threatening me not to come in front of the media. They are saying that as I am blind, I would become the face of this case," he added.

Another PhD student, Santosh Bhagat recounted his experience.

"In the evening at around 7 pm, many masked men entered the hostel. They had rods and sticks in their hands. We tried to go out but the attackers had entered the premises by then. I locked my room from inside but the attackers broke the door and entered my room and attacked me. They pushed me from the first floor and I fell down and sustained an injury. Later, I took shelter at one of the Professor's flat. Later, I was taken to the AIIMS Trauma Cantre," Bhagat said.

On Sunday evening, more than 30 students of the university, including JNUSU President Aishe Ghosh, were injured and were taken to the AIIMS Trauma Centre after a masked mob entered the JNU and attacked them and professors with sticks and rods.

The JNU administration and political leaders, cutting across political lines, condemned the attack on students and urged the police to take action against the perpetrators.

Meanwhile, the situation remained tense but peaceful outside JNU on Monday morning as the university guards maintained a strict vigil at the gate, checking I-cards of all those entering the university.

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News Network
May 28,2020

Hyderabad, MAY 28: A three-year-old boy who accidentally fell into a newly drilled open borewell in Telangana's Medak district was found dead in the early hours of Thursday, police said.

The kid's body was retrieved at around 4 am after a nearly 10 hours' long rescue operation involving different agencies, they said.

"He died a while before we evacuated him, most likely due to the mud that covered him from the top sealing off necessary oxygen supply, " Medak District Superintendent of Police Chandana Deepti told PTI.

The boy had accidentally slipped into the 120- feet borewell at around 5 pm on Wednesday in an agricultural field located in Papannapet mandal of the district when he was walking with his grandfather and father, police earlier said.

As part of rescue efforts, a parallel trench was dug along the borewell hole with the help of earth excavating machines and oxygen was supplied into it, but the efforts went in vain as the boy's body was found stuck at a depth of around 25 feet, the police said.

Apart from the police, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel were also involved in the rescue operation.

The borewell into which the child fell was one among the three dug by the family since Tuesday night to try and find water for their fields. But none of them yielded any water, police had said.

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Agencies
June 26,2020

Kozhikode, Jun 26: A man, who had returned from Bahrain on Thursday and has been under quarantine at his house in Villyapallai near here, has been stabbed on his arm by an unidentified person.

Police sources said the assailant, with a masked face, had ransacked the man's house by break-opening the door at midnight lat night and stabbed Lijeesh on his arm and fled from the scene.

The nearby residents took Lijeesh to a nearby hospital and was put back on quarantine. 

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