Bhopal, Jun 13 (PTI) An elephant killed its mahout in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, a police official said on Thursday.
The pachyderm killed Narendra Kapadia (55) near Bhanpur bridge at around 11:30pm on Wednesday when he was sleeping close by, the official said.
"The elephant has been tied to a tree on the Cholla Mandir police station premises. We are trying to contact the forest department so that they can take the jumbo away. It poses a danger though it is behaving normally now. The deceased's mahout friend Bhupendra is keeping a watch on the animal," Inspector Suresh Chandra Nagar told PTI.
Asked about the mahout's friends claiming that the elephant gets aggressive due to rise in temperatures and that he had killed a man earlier, the official said he had heard about these things.
Incidentally, India Meteorological Department official Prakash Dhawle said the night temperature on Wednesday was 24.6 degrees Celsius, which is 1.8 degrees Celsius below normal.
"The elephant picked up the mahout, threw him to the ground several times and then trampled him. We tried to save him but in vain. We then called the police," Bhupendra said.
The deceased's nephew Dipak Kapadia claimed the elephant had killed a man two years ago and had attacked a man last year. The elephant should be handed over to the forest department, he added.
The mahout's body has been sent to his kin in Satna, Inspector Nagar said.