A sick wild elephant has died under treatment in the Chhonkholar Aga area of Khutakhali beat, in the Fulchhari range of Cox's Bazar North Forest Division.

Fazlul Kader Chowdhury, acting range officer of Fulchhari range, confirmed the elephant died on the morning of Sunday, 11 June.

Range officer Fazlul Kader said a wild elephant had been found lying sick inside the forest on the morning of Saturday, 10 June. On receiving the news, treatment began, but the elephant died this morning. It was buried after a post-mortem.

He said whether the elephant fell ill from natural causes or from an injury would be known once the post-mortem report arrives on Monday, 12 June.

However, several local people, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the elephant had come into a mango orchard west of Godar Phari and Khutakhali Chhara two or three days earlier. The orchard owner fired shots to drive it away. Perhaps hit by a bullet, the elephant went back east and later fell sick in pain inside the forest.

Anwar Hossain Sarkar, divisional forest officer (DFO) of Cox's Bazar North Forest Division, said: "Including this one, three elephants have died at different times in this part of the Chakaria forest. This is alarming. We also found injury marks on the body of the elephant that died today. Strict legal action will be taken once we have the post-mortem report."

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.