Keonjhar: Two — including a woman — were killed in elephant attack in two separate incidents at Nuarugudi and Kanpur village in Keonjhar district.
The deceased have been identified as Jaga Mallick (52) of Nuarugudi village and Sanjulata Rout (52) of Kanpur village.
In the first incident, Jaga and his son were returning to their house at around 8:00pm Friday when they came face to face with a tusker unexpectedly. The pachyderm lifted Jaga with his trunk and later dashed him to the ground injuring him critically.
Although he was rescued to the Bhadrak district headquarters hospital, doctors declared him dead on arrival.
In a similar incident, the woman, Manjulata along with three others was headed to a mango orchard near Salandi river when she came across an elephant, which then trampled her to death.
On receiving information, police and forest department officials rushed to the spot and sent the body for post-mortem.
Irate over the incident, locals staged a road blockade on Chhenapadi-Baula road protesting against inaction of forest officials in protecting the area against frequent forages by elephants.