Three wild elephants trampled two men to death and injured another person seriously near the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve (BTR) in Umaria district of Madhya Pradesh on Saturday.

According to sources, it is being believed that the three jumbos are the ones that survived out of a herd of 13, of which 10 died within three days from Tuesday to Thursday after consuming some poisonous substance consequent to grazing on kodo millet crops in the BTR.

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According to forest department officials, the three elephants killed Ramratan Yadav (65) at Devra village, about 10 km away from the tiger reserve early this morning.

Thereafter they went into rampage at other places and killed Bhairav Kol (35) at Brahe village in the buffer zone of BTR and injured Malu Sahu (32) at Banka village outside the reserve.

Acording to Umaria Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Vivek Singh, teams of the forest department were trying to search and track down the three wild elephants. Ten elephants have died in the BTR in a span of three days earlier this week. On Tuesday, four wild elephants were found dead in Salkhania and Bakeli beats under Khitoli and Patuar Kor ranges of the BTR, while four died on Wednesday and two on Thursday.

In their postmortem reports, toxicity was observed in their stomachs. Besides, a huge quantity of kodo millet was found in their stomachs. Only three elephants, out of the 13-member herd, are alive now.