Rogue wild boar found dead in Odisha village

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Kendrapara, Feb 19:

Six days after it killed a man in Chakroda village near Odisha’s Kendrapara town, a wile boar was found dead on Thursday.

The carcass of the boar was found near bushes close to the local gram panchayat office where prohibitory orders under section 144 Cr PC had been clamped earlier.

The wild boar’s carcass bore multiple injury marks, raising suspicion that it might have been beaten to death by villagers, a forest official said.

The rogue animal had claimed a life and left seven other villagers injured in the last seven days creating panic in the densely populated village on the outskirts of the town.

The animal had strayed into the area from nearby forests close to Lalitgiri Buddhist monastery, forest range officer of Cuttack Territorial Forest Division Ashok Jena said.

Meanwhile, the body has been sent for autopsy to ascertain the cause of death.

Four forest officials were roughed up by irate villagers when the former were on a mission to ward off the wild boar, which had created a menace at the village. Besides, the mob also damaged the vehicle of the forest officials after a villager was injured by the wild boar yesterday.

Police have registered cases against nearly 30 local people for assaulting the four forest officials—a forest range officer, a deputy forest range officer and two foresters. However, no arrest has been made so far in this connection.

Following the incident, the forest officials had placed an official request to their higher authorities to declare the boar as a rogue animal so that it could be shot dead for the safety of the local people after several failed attempts at capturing the animal, the official said.

Notably, there were reports of increasing number of boar attack cases in Hatabanapur, Baspur and Chakroda villages in which one villager had died on February 13 and seven others were injured subsequently, which has fuelled anger amongst the villagers.