An elephant was found dead in a village in Raigarh district, a forest official informed.
The tusker, aged around 22, was found dead in a paddy field in Badgaon village coming under Junwani circle of Raigarh Forest Range, Raigarh Division Forest Officer (DFO) Vijaya Kurre said.
A team of forest officials rushed to the spot after some villagers informed them about the dead elephant and sent the carcass for postmortem, she said.
The exact cause of the tusker’s death is yet to be ascertained, the DFO said, adding that no injury mark was found on the carcass during preliminary examination.
The forest officials did not find any electric wires around their farm lands to prevent wild elephants from destroying their crops at the spot which are put up by local farmers generally, she said.This is the third such incident of elephant death since August 2016 in Raigarh district.