A wild rogue elephant, which was tranquillised recently by the forest department, has died in captivity, officials said on Sunday, 17 November.
"The animal was doing fine but the keepers here have reported that it died around 5:30 am (Sunday)," said a senior official of the Orang national park.
The 35-year-old male elephant was captured, after being tranquillised, from Rongjuli forest division in Western Assam's Goalpara district on 11 November. Forest department shifted the mammal to Orang national park on 12 November.
While the locals had nicknamed the elephant ‘Bin Laden’ after the late Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, it was named as “Krishna” after he was captured.
The Assam government had already sent a team of expert veterinarians, including KK Sarma, to carry out a postmortem on the dead elephant to ascertain the cause of its death.
A team led by BJP legislator from Sootea constituency, Padma Hazarika, tranquillised the rogue elephant. There were forest officials and veterinarians in the team who assisted in the process.
Although the forest department earlier planned to release the elephant in the wild, it later decided to keep it in captivity owing to strong public protest against releasing the rogue into the wild. People were apprehensive that the elephant might again attack nearby human habitations.
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