Rampaging elephant kills 4 in northeastern India
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-12 15:58

An elephant killed four people and sent others fleeing when it broke free from its chains and went on a rampage in northeastern Indian, smashing cars and damaging buildings, police said.

The bull elephant's three-hour rampage late Monday in Guwahati, the main city in far-flung Assam state, ended when wildlife officials shot it with tranquillizer darts.

Authorities said the 30-year-old elephant, which had been chained up in the front yard of a house, had gone into musth, a sexually aggressive phase that sometimes lasts months.

Armed Indian official looks at the elephant, who was captured after killing four people in the north-eastern city of Guwahati.[AFP]

"The elephant trampled two people to death and injured four more. Two of the injured later died in hospital," a police spokesman said on Tuesday.

Before being caught, the elephant uprooted electricity poles, overturned vehicles and damaged houses and shops.

"Traffic came to a halt and hundreds of people ran for their lives when the elephant came charging," shopkeeper Haridhan Pal said.

"No work and all rest made the elephant more virile as he had no way to burn up energy," said Kushal Konwar Sharma, a teacher at the College of Veterinary Science in Guwahati, who tranquillized the animal.

There are some 1,200 captive elephants in Assam that were made idle by a 1996 court ruling banning illegal felling of trees, in which the animals were employed, according to government figures.

Until the court ban, the elephants were big earners -- an elephant-keeper earned anything between 40,000 (around 900 dollars) to 50,000 rupees monthly logging trees.

Wildlife officials say at least 20 people have been killed in the past year by rampaging captive elephants in Assam.

Elephant owners have been clamouring for government "make work" schemes for their captive pachyderms, saying they cannot afford food for the animals.

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