As many as 18 elephants found dead in remote hill areas of Assam. The heartbreaking incident occurred in Nagaon district on Thursday.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma expressed concern over the incident. He asked Environment and Forest Minister Parimal Suklabaidya to visit the spot and start a preliminary investigation. Elephant expert Bibhuti Lahkar termed the incident shocking and said such cases are very rare. This is an unheard incident atleast in the Northeast. He also said “In open areas of some places like the African grassland such accidents have taken place, but rarely in India. If we consider Eastern India, then one such incident took place at Jaldapara in West Bengal around 12-15 years ago, but the number of deaths was not so high.”

The officials are trying to find the reasons to lightning from preliminary investigation. However, bodies of elephants are gone for postmortem to find out the real reason. The reports of postmortem will be there by Friday. It is too early to arrive at a conclusion before the post-mortem as the number of elephants dying is “simply too high”, said Lahkar, the head of elephant conservation at NGO Aaranyak.

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