Elephants Crush 4-Year-Old Child, Grandparents To Death While Searching For Food

A 4-year-old child and his grandparents were crushed to death by a herd of wild elephants early Thursday morning in India.

The elderly couple and their grandchild were sleeping in a hut in Anuppur district in the state of Madhya Pradesh when the herd rampaged through the area. Forest officials said nine elephants reportedly crossed the border from a neighboring state and entered the village in search of food.

Local divisional forest officer A.N. Ansari said the herd’s movement was first detected Wednesday, following which an advisory was issued to the local people.

The elderly couple, who died in the incident, had a hut in their farm, and were staying there when the elephants arrived, The Times of India reported. The couple’s grandchild had insisted on sleeping with them Wednesday night.

The elephants first entered the farm of the victim, Gaya Prasad Ketwat, and flattened the hut to get to the stocks of food grains.

Ketwat, aged 55, his wife and the child were all crushed to death, Navbharat Times reported [Google Translate showed]. Forest officials said they would be giving compensation of nearly $5,500 per life lost will be handed over to the family. The fate of the elephants in the case remains unclear. It was also not known if the herd of elephants damaged or attacked anyone else in the area.

This is the second such incident in the state this year, according to The Times of India. In February, an elderly man and his two grandsons were crushed to death by a herd of elephants in Haiki village. The grandsons were aged 12 and 13.

Last month in the state of Assam, a mother elephant trampled a 14-year-old boy to death after the teenager attempted to hug the animal's calf. The boy's death triggered outrage among local people, following which the police took the animals into custody and kept them chained. They were later handed over to the authorities of Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve. Authorities said they filed a case for culpable homicide not amounting to murder (causing death by negligence) in connection to the death.