Madhu Tati, 75, shuddered as he recalled the morning of January 9, 2026, when he could not bear the sight of his son’s headless body. Prakash, who used to operate heavy machinery and earned ₹15,000 a month, was killed by an elephant in Benisagar village of Majhgaon block in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand.
Madhu recalls that the morning was cold. Most of the family was asleep. “Prakash was recovering from jaundice,” he says. “Every day we gave him a glass of milk. When we put the container of milk on the chulha (earthen stove), we heard some people shouting. They said an elephant had entered the village.”
Prakash went outside to see what the fuss was about and promised to drink the milk as soon as he returned. An hour passed, but there was still no sign of him. “Then a villager came home. He told me that my son had been killed by a mad elephant,” says Madhu.
Madhu’s wife, 70-year-old Kuni Devi, says that if her son had only waited for the milk to boil, he would have been alive. “Our world is destroyed,” he says. Speaking about his son’s support, he adds: “He planned construction work on the house, which has been pending for two years.”
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Prakash’s wife Sanju Patro sobs as she neatly folds her late husband’s clothes. “How will we live our lives? Who will support us financially now? Who will take care of my younger daughter,” she cries. “I told him not to go out in the morning; why didn’t he listen to me?”
The couple has two daughters – the elder daughter Jaigosini (30) is married, while the younger Kalpana (20) helps her mother with daily household chores.
Prakash was among 20 people killed by a wild male elephant between January 1 and 9 in the Chaibasa and Kolhan forest areas of West Singhbhum district. The attacks took place mainly at night in villages. With the elephant on the rampage and the death toll rising, a massive search operation has been launched to locate the clown.
A climate of fear
The village of Benisagar is located just a few steps away from Odisha border. It comes under Kharposh panchayat which has a population of 14,000. The inhabitants of the village make a living mainly from agriculture. Some people migrated to other states like Haryana, Punjab and West Bengal and work as labourers.
The head of the panchayat, Pratap Chandra Chatar, 50, says people are now in a panic. With increasing death, they only move in groups. All the children in the village were instructed to stay in their homes. No villager ventures out after sunset. Some villagers also stopped sleeping in their homes and moved to safer places on higher ground. Many have also started sleeping in Pratap’s house, a concrete structure with a large hall that can accommodate about 50 villagers. Pratap says he provides them food at night.
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“I also asked the villagers to keep their pets inside their homes. Three people, including a forest official, were killed on January 9. The elephant killed not only them but also two buffaloes, one goat and a dog,” says Pratap.
Residents say the elephant also destroyed many houses in the village. The extent of the damage is visible everywhere. The mud and clay house of thirty-year-old Alka Chatarová has a gaping hole in it; says that the elephant tried to destroy the house with its tusk.
Alka points out the damage caused to her house by the elephant. | Photo credit: Amit Bhelari
For others, the experience was much worse. Ram Keria, 35, recounts his encounter with the elephant with horror. “It was terrifying to see it coming. I started running and also grabbed the hands of children who were curiously moving towards it. It killed three people within 100 meters and didn’t even allow the foresters to get near their bodies,” he says.
Damodar Kuldi, 20, of Haldia village, was also killed by an elephant on January 9. According to his family, he had gone outside to relieve himself when a slug attacked and killed him instantly.
Damodar lived with his uncle Rensu Kuld. When he met Amrita Kuldi from Mayurbhanj in neighboring Odisha, he fell in love and the two got married. Amrita, 18, is three months pregnant. “It’s painful not to have him around. Who will take care of my child,” she cries. Rensu says that if Amrita wants to remarry, the family will support her decision.
When night falls in Haldia, the villagers tend fires and try to stay awake until morning. The forest department is said to have supplied material for bonfires in every village the elephant passed through.
Mohammad Jabirul, one of the villagers, offers another idea. “If a ditch six to seven feet deep is dug around the village, the elephant cannot enter,” he says. Conversations about keeping the elephant at bay enliven the village throughout the day.
Search
The first fatal elephant attack was reported on January 1 in Roro and nearby villages in Khuntipani block of West Singhbhum district: three people were killed at night while they were sleeping. Then a tusker killed 17 people in West Singhbhum district.
“We have not received photos of any other elephant through the drone cameras, only that one bug. So we are sure it is the same elephant that killed them all,” says Aditya Narayan, Divisional Forest Officer, Chaibasa.
Aditya says the team is moving across all the areas the elephant has gone to. “Once we get some information from the foresters, we will move to the place. We have also set up a camp at Benisagar. Our team is continuously monitoring and scanning the area,” he adds.
Jharkhand forest department attracted more than 100 people to capture the elephant. A team of specialists was called from Odisha and West Bengal to tranquilize the animal. A team from Vantara, a rescue, rehabilitation and conservation center in Jamnagar, Gujarat, also visited the affected villages, did a reconnaissance tour and returned. The Vantara team was there to monitor the elephant’s movement and provide guidance and suggestions, says Aditya.
“I understand there is a lot of fear among the villagers,” he says. “But everyone needs to cooperate with forest officials. Even if there is a small outage, it can increase the chance of an unexpected incident. We don’t want to take any chances. That’s why we’re sending our team to the site, even if we think it’s just a rumor.”
He stresses the importance of the villagers being alert. “Our team has given instructions to build trust among the villagers,” he says.
Harish Chatomba, a forest ranger who is stationed at Benisagar camp, says, “Elephants are always seen in this area. They pass through the village but never attack people. This is the first time. Our team is working hard. Our first priority is to track the elephant, capture it and bring it back to the herd.”
Harish says there is a chance the elephant could be in the mating phase. “It’s much more aggressive when it’s looking for female elephants,” he explains.
Narayan Kumar, the head of one of the teams in the camp, roams around in an open jeep carrying firecrackers and torches. “There were no new cases reported after January 9. An elephant was spotted in the area on January 14, but it was not the one we are looking for. It did not harm anyone. When we lit the firecrackers, it went into the forest,” he says. Narayan adds that the tusker, which has killed 20 people, often changes its location, making it difficult to track.
A fateful meeting
On the night of January 6, 2026, four members of a family were killed by an elephant in Babaria village of Noamundi block in West Singhbhum district while they were sleeping outside their house on a gunyu, a temporary platform built by the Ho tribe during the rice harvest.
The victims were Sonathan Merul, 55; his wife Jhaloko Kui, 45; and two children Damyanti Meral, 8; and Mughu Meral, 5th.
Two other children – 12-year-old Jaipal Meral and 8-year-old Sushila Meral – survived the attack. They and now stay with their uncle Tupur Laguri. Sushila escaped with a fractured left leg. He is undergoing treatment at a government hospital.
“My elder sister, her husband and their two children lost their lives. Now I have two more children to take care of,” says Tupura. “Losing parents at such a young age is disturbing. Jaipal is still traumatized by watching his parents killed.” He adds that they don’t want to stay in their house anymore; remains closed.
His wife Jema Kui (33) is worried. “We are small farmers and we struggle for our daily earnings. We have three children. Having two more members in the family suddenly is difficult. But we cannot ignore them,” he says.
About 200 meters away, 36-year-old farmer Gurucharan Laguri, who was also sleeping on a gunya, was killed. He is survived by a five-year-old son. His younger brother Debo Laguri, 30, who works in a factory, says his brother was bleeding profusely after the elephant attacked him. The animal also injured three children, he says.
Gurucharan’s sister Jano Laguri says raising her brother’s child will be a challenge for her. She urged the state government to give one family member a government job and increase the compensation from ₹4 crore to ₹10 crore.
Dwindling habitat
Saranda forest is spread over 82,000 hectares in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand. It is home to several animals such as elephants and bison as well as tribal communities. It is home to the Singhbhum Elephant Sanctuary, India’s first elephant sanctuary created in 2001 under the Central Government’s Elephant Project, to protect elephants and their habitats. It was also used by the Indian Forest Service (IFS) to train officers.
However, the forest faces threats. A December 2025 study by the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, titled “Two Decades of Human-Elephant Conflict in Jharkhand: Spatial and Ecological Factors in Human Fatalities,” highlights the adverse impact of iron ore mining on local wildlife. It says: “Elephant habitat degradation in Jharkhand has far-reaching consequences for both elephants and humans. For local communities, the economic and social impact of human-elephant conflict is severe. Crop losses, property damage and human mortality have become common, especially in districts like West Singhbhum, Giridih and Hazaribagh.”
IFS officer Srikant Verma, who has been associated with several cases of human-animal conflict, gives possible reasons behind the behavior of this particular elephant. “In the case of a lone elephant, especially a male, such incidents occur when an elephant becomes separated from the herd and is not led by an older elephant. A lone elephant becomes more aggressive if provoked by humans.”
Srikant, who also serves as Divisional Forest Officer, Ranchi, adds, “It happened in February 2023, but it was not a big elephant like this; it was only six years old. It killed five people in Hazaribagh; it killed four people each in Chatra and Ranchi. When the lone elephant met the herd, no other deaths were reported.” He explains that elephants are docile when in a herd because they have protective tendencies.
According to the Jharkhand Forest, Environment and Climate Change Department, at least 1,270 people have died due to elephant attacks in Jharkhand in the last 18 years. About 150 elephant deaths were reported in the same period. A report issued by the Wildlife Institute of India titled “Status of Elephants in India: Synchronous All-India Population Estimation of Elephants (SAIEE 2021-25)” states that there are 217 elephants in Jharkhand as compared to 679 recorded in 2017. elephants into a fragmented landscape connected entirely by agricultural land and human settlements, (which) are insufficient to adequately meet their food needs and water, 30 elephant deaths were recorded between 2004 and 2017, mainly due to disease, electrocution, poisoning, poaching and train accidents.
Even as the conflict unfolds, fear is accompanied by hope in the villages. Vidyadhar Chatar, a resident of Benisagar, says, “We pray that the elephant does not harm anyone. I hope it will be caught soon so that we can all sleep peacefully.”