New Delhi: Just hours after being called in by authorities, India’s top hunter from Hyderabad Nawab Shafat Ali Khan shot the rogue elephant late on Friday. The elephant had killed 15 people since March before it was shot down by the hunter on Friday. It must be noted that Saturday was World Elephant Day. The hunt was carried out in Sahibganj district of Jharkhand.
Claiming that it was a dangerous operation, Mr. Khan recalled that the pachyderm tried to swing its trunk at the hunting party after he shot the elephant at point-blank range. The second shot tranquilised the animal. If we had been hit by his truck it could have been fatal, he said. He told that the operation was difficult more so because of the thick bushes.
Baffled by the elephant’s behaviour, he wondered, why the elephant was literally stalking humans — is still a mystery.
After futile attempts by the veterinary team of the Jharkhand Forest Department to tranquilise the beast, authorities in Maharashtra roped in Hyderabadi sharpshooter Nawab Shafa’at Ali Khan to find and kill an elephant whose rampage through villages had left 15 people dead.
The tusker is assumed to have lost his way from Nepal and come all the way through West Bengal and Bihar to Jharkhand. The elephant had crushed four victims in Bihar in March and killed 11 in Jharkhand.
In 2014, Mr. Khan was licensed by Uttar Pradesh to capture or kill a man-eating tiger that was believed to have killed eight people. Mr. Khan has carried out 25 government-sanctioned hunting missions so far.