Keonjhar: The Keonjhar Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) on Wednesday suspended two Forest officials in connection with the death of two elephants inside a reserve forest area in the district on June 13.
Pian Nayak, Joda Section Forester, and Dolagobinda Deo, Forest Guard at Jurudi beat house, have been placed under suspension for dereliction of duty.
It may be mentioned here that the carcasses of a female and a male elephant were recovered by Forest officials near Gurubeda area from Baitarani (B) reserve forest. The tusks of the male elephant were missing.
Preliminary investigations indicated that the animals were killed by poachers as the tusks of the male elephant were missing. During the site inspection, the officials recovered long electrical wires and insulators from the area which indicated that the pachyderms were electrocuted.
It is suspected that electric wires had been spread in the area by poachers to kill small wild animals like deer and boar, and the two elephants got electrocuted after coming in contact with those live wires.
